Kasey Kahne feels comfortable in a cowboy hat, especially when he's wearing it in Victory Lane. Credit: Autostock

10 Questions: Kahne

Country music, Tombstone among cowboy Kasey's favorites

In 2006, Kasey Kahne finally is producing the results his inaugural 2004 season had forecast for Evernham Motorsports' dynamic youngster.

It took a complete restructuring of the team that services Kahne's No. 9 Dodge Chargers, but pairing him with team director Kenny Francis, who engineered two consecutive appearances in the Chase for the Nextel Cup for Evernham's senior pilot, Jeremy Mayfield, has been the charm for Kahne.

	Kasey Kahne has a 12.9 average finish in 2006. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Kasey Kahne in 2006 Site Start Finish Points Daytona 27 11 12 Fontana 13 4 4 Las Vegas 5 4 3 Atlanta 1 1 2 Bristol 23 10 2 Martinsville 5 35 4 Texas 1 1 3 Phoenix 22 6 3 Talladega 37 39 4 Richmond 6 34 7 Darlington 1 21 8 Lowe's 9 1 6 Dover 26 7 6 Pocono 3 7 5 Kasey Kahne Cup career Year No. W T-5 T-10 Pts 2004 36 0 13 14 13 2005 36 1 5 8 23 2006 14 3 5 9 5

Kahne has won three times already this season and is securely locked into the top 10 in the standings, so he took a break recently from race preparation to answer 10 questions not necessarily connected to his racing career.

1. What's your favorite outdoor activity?

Kahne: I like hunting and fishing. I like wakeboarding and getting out on the lake. I like dirt-bike riding and all that kind of stuff.

With the schedule I have, though, the biggest problem I have is not enough time to do any of those things.

2. Which athlete outside of racing do you most admire?

Kahne: I like a lot of the Seahawks, because they're my home team. But I think it would be Ricky Carmichael, the motocross champion.

I've been following his career since it started but I've been friends with him for the last couple of years and we get a chance to interact quite a bit.

If he chose to pursue a career in NASCAR racing, I think the strong will and the work ethic that it takes to compete would be simple for him. He'd definitely be able to put out the effort to do it.

It's a matter of figuring out race strategy and questions about four tires versus two tires and things like that. The control he has on a dirt bike, I think those guys that compete in that sport could [race cars] -- if they get enough time.

3. What's your favorite recent movie and your favorite all-time flick?

Kahne: My favorite recent movie would be Walk The Line. I forget what my favorite all-time movie is called. What's the one where he says, 'You're my huckleberry?'

It's a cowboy movie. Aaah -- Tombstone, that's it.

4. If possible, who would you trade places with for a day, and why?

Kahne: There are a lot of people I'd like to trade places with. But I'd probably trade places with an actor, or someone like that.

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I'm not even sure what kind of movie it would be, but I'd just like to spend time just getting to do what they do.

Maybe it would be somebody like Kenny Chesney or Dierks Bentley -- somebody that's on tour like those guys are.

5. What's your ideal break from the racing grind, or are you at a point in your career you don't consider it a grind?

Kahne: I just consider it kind of what we do each day. It's not a pain -- it's kind of just the normal deal, every day is not much different, it's always the same and what we have to do is not too much of a grind.

6. Do you have an iPod, and if you do, what's on that bad boy?

Kahne: Yeah, I do. I've probably got right about at 1,200 songs. The majority of it is country -- Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts.

The majority is country, but I've got the new Jewel CD and I put that on there, recently. And I go from there to Audioslave.

My mood dictates some of what I listen to, but it still turns out to be country a lot [because] I'm just a big country music fan.

7. What is your number one guilty pleasure?

Kahne: Sleeping in.

8. What was your worst subject in school -- or the one you liked the least?

Kahne: Probably Science. No, it was English. I don't care how well it seems I do with it now, back then, it was English.

9. If you could go back in time, what period in history would you like to live in?

Kahne: I'd probably like to race back in the time when A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti were racing dirt cars, Indy cars and stock cars -- everything. Whenever that was. I don't really know the years, but it would have been at that time.

I know they raced in some fighting times, back then. I may not have been a fighter, but I would have held my own. Or I would have stood up for myself, anyway, though I don't know if I would have held my own, or not.

10. What have you learned about yourself in the last year?

Kahne: That I think about things too much.