NASCAR Cup Series

Relieved Kahne overcomes pit-road problems to advance in Chase

Published Sep. 28, 2014 6:01 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

The battle for the final transfer spot into the Contender 12 round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup turned into an epic battle between Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch throughout the 400 laps Sunday at Dover International Speedway.

Entering the day 11th in the Chase standings, Kahne ran in the top 10 for the first 100 laps of Sunday's race and looked to be having a solid outing at the Monster Mile. 

However, Kahne brought his car to pit road under green on Lap 160 for a loose wheel, forcing the team to regroup and claw their way back into contention to advance. 

Going two laps down, Kahne was able to use the free pass on the next caution to get one lap back, but fell outside the Chase cutoff and was 15th in the Chase standings as the race hit the halfway mark on Lap 200.

"We had a loose wheel and had to pit under green," said crew chief Kenny Francis. "You get two laps down when you pit under green here. So we ran two laps down for a while. We ended up waving around and got one (lap) down. Then we had a long green flag run and we got two laps down again, had to pit under green, and then were four (laps) down."

With older tires than most on the field, Kahne fell a second lap down to race leader Kevin Harvick on Lap 213. Off sequence from the rest of the field, Francis brought his driver back to pit road on Lap 241 from the 28th spot. Rejoining the race, Kahne was 30th, four laps down.

Kahne finally caught a break when Harvick had a flat tire after making a green flag stop. Harvick's issue brought out the caution flag and allowed Kahne to make up three of his four laps as green flag stops allowed him to gain ground on the leaders. Despite the timely caution, he was still 26th on the field, a lap down to the leaders on Lap 261.

Mired deep in the field, Kahne's misfortune allowed Kurt Busch to jump from 15th in the Chase standings at the beginning of the day to 12th as the race soldiered on.

However, when Kahne caught the break thanks to Harvick's flat left front tire, the gap between 12th and 13th in the standings tightened.

As Busch fell back to 14th in the running order with just 90 laps to go, and Kahne making up lost ground, the gap fell to just one point, with Busch holding the advantage.

Just 10 laps later, Busch continued to struggle and fall through the field, dropping to 17th with 80 laps to go.

After green flag stops cycled through with just 65 laps to go, Kahne held the 12th spot in the standings, while Busch was one point back in 13th, A.J. Allmendinger was three points back, Greg Biffle was five points back and Aric Almirola was 15th, a distant 16 points behind Kahne.

The battle for the final transfer spot was far from over, though. With 37 laps to go, Harvick moved by Busch for the 13th spot, which gave Kahne the 12th spot in the Chase standings.

Busch continued to drop through the field as he fought a tight condition and finished 18th, while Kahne would bring the car home 20th when the checkered flag fell.

Certainly not the day the No. 5 bunch had envisioned at the start of the day, the team's ability to prepare a fast car and respond to adversity made the difference in the end.

"I had a fast car. Luckily Kenny (Francis) made great calls," said Kahne. "The team prepared a great car so I was fortunate to have that and drive our way back to barely advance. But I had to push hard on that; glad NASCAR just let it go and let us race for it, you know? It was pretty interesting but I'm glad we made it. We had to fight hard. I think we had a top two or three car today; we just didn't get to show it."

The up-and-down day put team owner Rick Hendrick to the test as well. 

"When he had to pit under green, I just thought we were done," said Hendrick. "There's just no way, didn't think we could make up two laps. We did a wave-around, and it worked out. Then I thought we were OK. Then we were even or one point behind (the Chase transfer spot). I really had written it off about two-thirds of the way of the race, I just thought we weren't going to catch a break to get back in it."

After the race, Francis simply described the day to FOXSports.com as "stressful," saying the caution for Harvick's issue was the turning point of their march back into the top 12 of the Chase.

"That allowed us to the opportunity to pass more cars, which is what we needed," he said. "Everybody hung in there, which is encouraging. We hate to put ourselves in that position in the first place, because that was on us. We shouldn't have had a loose wheel. Everybody bounced back, so hopefully everybody can take it as a lesson learned and go on down the road."

Advancing to the next round of the Chase, Francis understands the team cannot afford to have these types of mistakes if they plan to advance out of the Contender 12 into the Elimination 8 round.

"This is what it's all about," he said. "Do we want to go race or not? If we want to race, we've got to stop making those silly mistakes and stay on top of our stuff. If we can do that, we can get up there and race with them."

One of the last cars to make it into the 16-driver Chase field thanks to the win at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the next-to-last regular-season race, Francis is encouraged with how well the team has been running over the past few weeks. He pointed out the car was competitive throughout the day on Sunday, but running laps down it was hard for people to take notice.

"We feel like we've actually been running a lot better lately," he said. "Our stuff is really coming around. We've hit some stuff that we think is really helping us. We feel like that's going to transfer into Kansas -- and we finished third at Kansas earlier in the year -- Charlotte, we usually run pretty good. We feel like we're on the right track with our cars and our setups. Hopefully it's all coming together; it seems like it's all coming together."

VIDEO: Kasey Kahne talks about being the last driver to make it into the Chase Challenger round

share

Get more from NASCAR Cup Series Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

NASCAR Cup Series