NASCAR Cup Series

Kahne's career marked by distractions

Published Jun. 24, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

It seems that wherever Kasey Kahne goes, drama follows.

Ironically, seldom has the 31-year-old racer been the cause of that. But ever since Kahne was sued by Ford when he left the manufacturer to take over the No. 9 Evernham Motorsports Dodge at the end of 2003, his NASCAR Sprint Cup career has been rife with disruption.

With the recent news that Red Bull Racing could be shutting down at the end of the year, as the owner/sponsor plans to leave NASCAR, Kahne — who signed a one-year deal with the company until the No. 5 seat is available at Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 — is more of a lame duck than he expected to be.

But Kahne, who qualified sixth on Friday for Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway, doesn’t seem worried.

“I really look at it as it just is what it is,” Kahne said. “I think Red Bull is going to do all they can to help out the team and try to get people involved and hopefully carry the two teams on and keep racing. They are going to do what they can throughout this year to help that situation.

“As far as our parts and pieces and race cars go, they’ve told me when I talked to them that they are doing everything just as they would if they were racing the next year.”

Kahne has been plagued with outside interruptions throughout his career.

With an impending divorce, Ray Evernham sold his company to George Gillett. While he was retained as a consultant, Gillett made the mistake of phasing out Evernham. That sparked the subsequent mismanagement and lack of leadership that followed with Alex Gillett and then Foster Gillett. The whole Gillett-Evernham experience was a classic case of an organization crumbling under absentee ownership.

And again, Kahne was caught in the middle.

Gillett’s feeble attempt to bring credibility to the company by rebranding the organization Richard Petty Motorsports after partnering with the seven-time champion in 2009 would inevitably become an embarrassment to The King — and all of those involved. Despite operating the program under the Petty banner, changing the name did not change the problems.

Kahne won twice that season — including here at Infineon Raceway — where Petty returned to a Victory Lane for the first time in a decade. Kahne qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup that season for just the second time in his career, but finished 10th in the points standings as financial issues for Gillett started to surface.

But after vice president of competition Mark McArdle was released from the company in September 2009, any semblance of order left. RPM, under the direction of Robbie Loomis, has not won since. McArdle, who moved to Furniture Row Racing, was instrumental in Regan Smith picking up his first career win for that organization this May in one of NASCAR’s most prestigious races, the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

For Kahne, and RPM, 2010 was no better. The company picked up horsepower by moving to Ford, and Kahne’s crew chief, Kenny Francis, was able to maximize a car package that could produce speed and four poles. But the team just couldn’t pick up momentum. Once it was announced that Kahne was leaving for Hendrick in April, a dervish of sponsor and driver drama followed with the subsequent loss of Budweiser and Menards sponsorships.

As the company scrambled to make payroll and assuage creditors on a weekly basis for the final races of the 2010 season, performance suffered substantially. With five races remaining in the season, Kahne jumped ship and went to Red Bull in search of a stable home until his seat opened at Hendrick.

“It is tough, but at the same time it is what it is, and it’s the situations at the places that I’ve been in,” Kahne said. “I just can only take it and do the best we can. I think we’ve been pretty close this year at times. I felt like we had the best car last week or one of the best cars and didn’t win. I think we’re pretty close.”

At the same time, Kahne is no kid any more. This is his eighth season in the sport. There were great expectations when Evernham first brought his protégé into the Cup series. But in 267 starts, Kahne has produced just 11 victories and two Chase berths. Given the status of Red Bull, Kahne has to concentrate on what he can control — his future at Hendrick Motorsports.

“I still feel really young so I think I’m all right,” Kahne said. “I’ve still got some years left. I’m right about at my best point. My next four years should be my best four years, would be what I would certainly hope out of myself and out of the situation that I’m going to be in. I think it’s going to be a great opportunity, and I can’t wait.”

What does Kahne have to look forward to? A lot. First, he will race with a fully funded program for the next four years with primary support from Farmers Insurance. He will have championship-caliber equipment. And most of all, he will have teammates — Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. — who will push him to realize his potential on and off the track.

“It will definitely be a bit different than the situation that I’ve been in the past,” Kahne said. “I actually look forward to it, knowing that I’ll be the guy with the least amount of statistics. I’ll be the guy that’s done the least amount in this sport, and I just look at that as a good thing. I’ve got guys that I can actually learn from and things. They have to look at certain racetracks and certain situations differently than I do. If I can learn from them on some of those things, it’s only going to make myself better.

“Over the years, I’ve taught myself a lot of things and listened and learned as much as I could, but to actually have someone where you know that they’re telling you the real story and you can look at their notes or you can do whatever you want as far as the team stuff goes — I don’t see how that can’t make me better.

“One thing about those guys, though, is that I’ve always wanted to beat them. I’ve always wanted to beat Jeff Gordon, and I’ve always wanted to beat Jimmie Johnson. You always want to beat Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. They are the guys, there are four or five guys that are just there. Tony Stewart and they are just there every year. Those are the guys that you want to beat. If you can beat them, then you know you’ve done something right.

"It’s going to be pretty neat. I can’t wait to get started over there. I want to finish strong with Red Bull, but can’t wait to get started over there.”

Kahne doesn’t anticipate leaving Red Bull before the season is over, but he would like the chance to test with the No. 5 team prior to 2012 if the opportunity presents itself. He doesn’t want to “take anything away from the (Red Bull Racing No.) 4 car or the (Hendrick No.) 5 car” in the process.

If there’s been one constant in Kahne’s recent racing career, it’s Francis. The crew chief has guided Kahne since 2006 and followed him to Red Bull at the end of last season. Francis is also expected to join Kahne when he moves to Hendrick Motorsports.

“He’s been our leader,” Kahne said. “He’s been the guy that puts everything on his shoulders. It doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly, his fault or not his fault — he takes everything. Sometimes I have to tell him that he doesn’t need to take everything because without him we’re half of what we’ve been at best. He’s a great guy and a guy that I don’t want to not be with.

“He’s a huge part of everywhere that I’ve went over the last few years in helping out and helping performance with each team he’s with. He was a big part of helping Roush Racing get their stuff turned around. He’s just a good guy, and he focuses as much or more than anyone in the sport.”

And Francis will help Kahne through this latest kink in the road until the pair can reach stable ground at Hendrick Motorsports. While Kahne has been told by the Red Bull folks in Austria “that they really want to figure out how to make this program go on, they just don’t want to own it anymore," he still has concerns.

“My gut feeling is that there will be two cars there next year,” Kahne said. “I was really more worried about this year and what their idea was of how we were going to get through this year and how we’re going to take care of all the people that work there. I didn’t ask what their plan was for next year.

“I really think that there will be two cars there next year. I think they’re going to figure out how to help make that work as much as they can. They’ve been such a big part of this sport for the past six years, five years, I would hope that somehow they’re still involved. I think that it’s awesome that Red Bull has been involved in NASCAR. I think they’ve been great for NASCAR, so hopefully they’ll somehow still be involved.”