KANSAS CITY, Kansas – Hendrick Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne is out of The Chase for the Sprint Cup, but a noteworthy fourth place finish in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 provided a much-needed reboot.
Poised to be one of the sleepers to contend for the win last weekend at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway proved to be nothing more than a dream, after Kahne left the race early after hard contact with the wall.
Kahne’s third top-five of the season, matching a season-high fourth last achieved at Dover (Del.) International Speedway caps off a memorable week for the Enumclaw, Washington native.
“We had a great Liftmaster Chevrolet. The guys had great pit stops and did an awesome job,” said Kahne. “We were able to battle all day. I was kind of stuck there around 10th or 12th most of the race of the first half. I got from 24th to about 13th, 12th right in there and we were battling loose the longer the run went the looser I would get. We finally made an adjustment that helped that. From that point on we were rocking and rolling pretty good. We were able to get up there and felt like we were definitely a top five car and really competitive.”
Earlier this week, Kahne and girlfriend Sam Sheets welcomed a baby boy early Tuesday morning, the driver announced on Twitter.
“I officially become a dad at 1:11 AM to Tanner Lee Kahne,” Kahne tweeted Tuesday. “Mom and Tanner are doing great. On no sleep, but we can’t put this little guy down.”
Kahne, is just the latest Sprint Cup driver to become a first-time dad. Brad Keselowski and girlfriend Paige White became parents to a baby girl in May, which was the same month that Kyle Busch and wife Samantha welcomed a son, Brexton. Last December, Kyle Larson’s girlfriend, Katelyn Sweet had a baby boy. Sweet is the sister of Kahne’s open-wheel driver Brad Sweet.
Tirelessly, Kahne earned his ninth top-10 finish of the year, Kahne bookmarks a week he won’t soon forget.
Next weekend, Kahne heads to Talladega for the final round of The Contender round, where he looks to be a spoiler and break up a two-race streak for Joey Logano in the sixth round of the Chase.
In 23 starts, Kahne has two runner-up finishes at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, most recently in the fall event in 2009.
The win would be monumental for avoiding the worst season for the 35-year-old since joining Hendrick Motorsports.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
