NASCAR Cup Series

Kahne brings special swagger to Charlotte Motor Speedway

Published Oct. 10, 2014 11:48 a.m. ET

foxsports

A late-race tangle with the wall last weekend at Kansas Speedway dropped Hendrick Motorsports' Kasey Kahne down the finishing order and outside the top eight in the Chase standings after the first race of the Contender Round.

Yet as the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet heads into this weekend's event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, confidence is running high.

Sitting ninth in the Chase standings after a 22nd-place finish in Kansas, trailing teammate Jeff Gordon eight points for the transfer spot, Kahne is at a venue where he has four wins, nine top fives and 12 top 10s.

He truly believes there is no better place to get back on track.

"(Charlotte is) a place where I feel the most confident on kind of understanding and knowing what I need in the car to win Saturday night, or at least come close, put it there and have a shot," he said Thursday. "I think as long as I can remember, we have been top two or three in this race throughout a lot of it, and late in the race as well. I can't remember that at too many other tracks.

"I would say this is the place to make up as much ground as possible. It should be good Saturday night."

During Thursday's 1-hour, 30-minute practice session, Kahne was only 20th fastest, and in qualifying -- where he was the first to break the track record in Round One -- he did not at advance from the second round and will start Saturday night's race from the 19th spot.

Prior to qualifying, he said the team was able to learn some things in the lone practice session, but felt that Friday's two final practice sessions would "mean a lot more as getting the car prepared and ready for Saturday night."

Kahne has certainly been no slouch at the 1.5-mile track in Concord, N.C.

He swept the races in 2006 and won the 2008 Coca-Cola 600. After joining Hendrick Motorsports, he won the 2012 Coca-Cola 600, has an average finish of 5.4 here, and was the runner-up in last year's Bank of America 500, as well as this season's Coca-Cola 600.

"We haven't won the Bank of America 500 in a while and would really like to," said Kahne, who has led a total of 395 laps at Charlotte. "It would obviously help. There are a lot of people that want to win this one.

"Just doing all we can. This is a neat track, it's fun to race at, and it changes a lot. Strategy plays a big part late in the races here. It would be great to get a win."

A win would automatically transfer Kahne into the Eliminator 8 round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which starts in two weeks at Martinsville Speedway. If the win does come Saturday night in Charlotte, Kahne and his Kenny Francis-led team will have a much more relaxed race next weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, but he is not looking too far down the road just yet.

"Actually I really feel like the best thing for myself is just to look at the upcoming race," he said. "That is kind of how I've done it all season. It hasn't necessarily worked throughout the rest of the year. In the last month I think it has worked pretty well. We have shown up at each track and been really competitive. In these races we have been fast each week since the Chase started. I feel that is all you can do, because depending on how you run this week is how you look at next week. There is a lot too that."

After securing a spot in the original 16-driver Chase field with a win at Atlanta Motor Speedway late in the season, Kahne and his team fought their way back from adversity in Dover to advance to the Contender Round. Facing adversity yet again, perhaps the key to Kahne's ability to advance even further in the Chase will be his performance Saturday night in Charlotte.

VIDEO: Kasey Kahne discusses rough day at Kansas Speedway