Kahne says Sunday's race was 'most difficult' Coca-Cola 600
Kasey Kahne knew he faced a long road if he wanted to earn his fourth-career Coca-Cola 600 victory on Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Despite having a strong car throughout the weekend's practice sessions, Kahne started 33rd out of 43 cars after a slow leak in the left rear caused the tire to not hold air during the first round of Thursday's qualifying.
NASCAR did not allow the team to change the tire, so the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet had a lot of work to do to get to the front once the green flag flew.
Kahne wasted no time making progress at the outset of the race, climbing into the top 15 by Lap 100. He continued to work his way to the front until being hit with a pit road speeding penalty under green flag conditions on Lap 190. The penalty dropped him back to 29th, one lap down to the race leaders.
Having already worked his way through the field once, Kahne was forced to do it again, all while chasing down the first car one lap down to get in a position for the free pass.
That break came on Lap 275 when teammate Jimmie Johnson spun to bring out the fifth caution of the night, putting Kahne back on the lead lap. With a fast car under him, Kahne once again made a charge into the top 10.
Running inside the top 10 in the closing laps, Kahne brought the No. 5 Chevy to the attention of his Keith Rodden-led crew to top off on fuel with 21 laps to go. Six cars gambled on fuel and stretched it to the end, leaving Kahne with a 12th-place finish.
"If we started up front, had I not been speeding on pit road, I think we would have been better, because, to me, it was all about track position," Kahne said. "I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be. If I got the lead, if I saved fuel like the 19 (race winner Carl Edwards) -- I was better than the 19 all night and he wins -- there are many ways we could have ran better."
While he came through the field twice and had the second-highest number of green-flag passes -- 127, second only to Chase Elliott's 138 -- Kahne said nothing was easy about it.
"This was the most difficult 600 to pass that I've ever been involved in," Kahne said. "You can take that for what you want, but I've raced 11 or 12 of these and this was by far the most difficult 600-miler I've ever raced in to pass a lapped car, a car you're racing for 28th or a car you're racing for ninth. It was really, really tough."
