Hours after he was too ill to get back in his wounded race car, Kasey Kahne ran a Sunday morning 5k for his charity in a shade over 22 minutes.
''That was the slowest I ever ran a 5K,'' he said. ''I'm definitely feeling the effects.''
Yes, Kahne was physically sick Saturday night, and said he vomited once after his accident 124 laps into the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
He was also sick of his race car, frustrated with running poorly and disgusted that his brakes had failed for the third time this season, and second time in three races. Had he not gotten sick, Kahne said Sunday he might have gotten back in the car after his Richard Petty Motorsports crew repaired some of the damage.
By that time, though, he was 100 laps down. He was queasy, annoyed with the brakes and angry at criticism from an unnamed RPM employee.
So he said no, he couldn't continue, and the team grabbed J.J. Yeley to finish the race.
''I was told that I needed to start doing my part, (that) is what one guy told me last night after the race,'' Kahne said at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, at the finish line of the Kasey Kahne Foundation 5-kilometer run.
''I'm not going to say names, but I was told that I need to start doing my part. I can't control the issues I've had this year. I don't know how many parts I've broke,'' he said. ''If I really thought about it, I could come up with all kinds of stuff.
''You can't control that as a driver. I'm doing my part. I just need the car. I work as hard as anybody out there.''
Kahne's disappearing act was a mere sideshow to Jamie McMurray's victory and yet another improbable comeback for Jimmie Johnson. The four-time defending NASCAR champion spun early, dropped to 37th in the field, and rallied to finish second and widen his lead in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship standings.
Johnson was up early Sunday to join fellow NASCAR driver Joey Logano in running Kahne's charity ''5Kahne.'' The inaugural run drew 302 runners and raised $30,000 for his foundation.
It was a nice show of support from Johnson to his future teammate. Kahne signed to join Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 this spring, and will move to Red Bull Racing next year as a one-season holding spot before he makes his eventual move to HMS.
Kahne confirmed Sunday that crew chief Kenny Francis will move to Red Bull with him, and that Francis will have the option of staying at Red Bull or moving to Hendrick in 2012.
At the rate things are going, it would be surprising if Kahne doesn't try to move to Red Bull sometime over the final five races of this year.
He's miserable at RPM, where a year after making the Chase, he's winless, ranked 21st in the standings and has just nine top-10 finishes. The final straw seemed to be Saturday night, when Kahne said he had never been so mad in a race car.
''I lost it,'' he said. ''I was just mad. I came into the race thinking we had a shot to win, thinking we had a good car in practice, we had a good shot. It went green. We were a little bit tight, but still actually passed cars and really felt good and then boom, my brakes are gone.
''It's not like you have half-brakes, like you can pump them. Your foot goes to the floor. It bottoms out. It's a joke.''
Kahne thinks the problem is the brake fluid RPM is using, adding that Francis wanted to change to a different brand but was overruled because Kahne is the only one of eight teams using the fluid having a problem.
''Basically we run stuff that's not very good compared to some of the other teams,'' Kahne said. ''So once you lose your brakes, you can't get them back. With that fluid, you can't get them back. There are other fluids that you can, but with ours you can't. Their point is that we have eight teams and I'm the only one that's had this issue, and that's a good point.
''But I've never had any issues in my past six years,'' he said. ''If you look at brakes after a race, my brake pads are better than any one of the other seven or the same as the best ones that don't use much brake. So it's just a mess, really.''
The brakes went, Kahne said, about 30 laps into the race and that's what caused his wreck. After fixing the car, Yeley finished the race and picked up two spots to finish 38th.
''I want to thank J.J.,'' Kahne said. ''I appreciate him doing that. I just didn't feel good enough to get back in the car.''
