Kasey Kahne has three wins on 1.5-mile tracks this season. Credit: AP

Q&A: Kasey Kahne

After rough luck at Dover, driver confident team can get it together

After a couple of tough outings the first two weeks of the Chase, Kasey Kahne, who has a series leading five victories this season, is down to ninth place in the standings, 182 points behind the leader, Jeff Burton.

Kahne spoke to the NASCAR media earlier this week.

	Kasey Kahne waits for his car to be fixed after his accident at Dover. Credit: AP
	Chase for the Nextel Cup After Dover (2nd of 10 races) Pos. +/- Driver Behind 1. +4 Jeff Burton Leader 2. +2 Jeff Gordon -6 3. -- Matt Kenseth -18 4. -2 Denny Hamlin -18 5. -4 Kevin Harvick -54 6. -- Mark Martin -75 7. -- D. Earnhardt Jr. -102 8. +1 Jimmie Johnson -136 9. -1 Kasey Kahne -182 10. -- Kyle Busch -224 • Complete standings, click here SUPERSTORE •   2006 Chase driver hats!

Q: Kasey you had to rally to get into the Chase for the Nextel Cup, and you were able to do that in great fashion. How do you feel about your chances of pulling off another rally and getting back into title contention?

Kahne: I think if there's any team that can do it right now, it's ours. We've been good. Our team has done an awesome job all year. We've had a great season, but we've had some tough breaks, too. That's racing. Things happen and we've had a bit of both this year. So I feel like we can definitely win some more races, lead laps, get right back in the middle of the thing. I don't think we're out. I think we're a long ways from winning the championship. I think that, you know, WITH the right breaks and the performance that we're capable of doing, we can get right back in it.

Q: And you feel good about some of the tracks you're going too, I'm sure.

Kahne: Yeah, I feel good about every track that we go to. The only one within that draws a little concern would be Talladega, and it probably draws a little concern for everybody. You don't know when something is going to happen or you're going to be in the middle of it or not. That's a track that draws a little concern, but other than that, every track we go to, we can run the top 5 for sure.

Q. I was wondering watching the cars go around, you looked pretty down and out. How do you get back into this thing, how do you sort of mentally reshift your focus to try to win a championship?

Kahne: I think, you know, mainly I just need to get back in my car. I got back in the car even on Sunday and we had 300 laps to go or 250, and I did everything I could to go fast and, you know, run as fast as I could for those laps. It's pretty easy to do. I feel like every time I'm in a car, all I want to do is go as fast as possible. It's my job to get in a race car and come back for the weekend, we could definitely go for the pole on Friday.

So far this year we've been starting 30th in these races for the Chase and we need to start in the top four this week to help our chances.

Q. What exactly was the problem that drove you from the race for good?

Kahne: It was an engine problem. I'm not exactly sure what. I know yesterday they had their own thoughts on what it was but I haven't heard today what it was. But it was definitely engine failure.

Q. What's the difference over the last two years when you were not in the Chase, as far as going into the race and how you drive, did you notice a difference between not being in the Chase and being in the Chase?

Kahne: Personally, I remember the last two years, you see the guys you're racing with, and you don't race them any differently. I mean, I didn't, just because the guy was in the Chase, I didn't pass him, but you think about it. I was thinking about that the last few years and this year I haven't thought about it at all. I thought about going fast and doing all we could to pass whoever is in front of us. This would be the only thing that I can recall over the last three years of racing in the Chase and not in the Chase.

Q. I talked before about how most of the tracks except for Talladega look pretty good for you. Can you talk specifically about Kansas Speedway, and is this a pretty good place to start your comeback to get it back into this thing?

Kahne: Yeah, I think so. Dover was a great track for us. New Hampshire, I usually always run in the top 10 at New Hampshire and Dover, we're always fast and have fun for some reason. And Kansas, last year I had one of the best cars there and I crashed qualifying, coming to the green, actually which was just crazy what's was thinking, trying to run flat all the way to the green wasn't very smart.

But, you know, the tracks are similar to some of the other tracks we've won at this year, and I don't see why we can't run up front and make the right adjustments and do the right thing in the race and put ourselves in the right spot at the end to win.

Q. You come here mentally in pretty good shape knowing you're coming to Kansas.

Kahne: Yeah, I think any track we go to, except Daytona and Talladega, I know I can win at those racetracks, Kansas is one of those tracks that we can go fast.

Q. One of the people last week who said you still have a shot last week is Ray Evernham. What did he say to you after the race in terms of the last part of the Chase?

	ALSO Kasey Kahne won three of the five races on 1.5-mile tracks leading into the Chase. Conventional wisdom says -- despite being in ninth place, 182 points behind -- the first-year Chaser still has hopes of hoisting the Nextel Cup at Homestead.  B. Duane Cross disagrees.  •   Complete story,  click here

Kahne: He just said, "nothing you could do about that." That was just racing, things happen, and disappointing, but, you know, we're going to still give it a shot and do everything we can to get back in the middle of this thing. He was actually pretty good about it. He said that we've got a shot, so we can do whatever we can do, get faster, have our heads town and try not to have any more mistakes. We pretty much have to have a flawless year this year from here on out.

Q. The last trip to a mile-and-a-half track, you were 23rd, and you dominated early year this year on all the tracks, but you felt like some of the other teams sort of caught up in Chicago when you finished 23rd. Do you feel like you got ahead of the curve on the aerodynamics on the mile-and-a-half tracks?

Kahne: Yeah, we definitely made some adjustments, made some gains. We went and did some tests in Kentucky and some things and as an organization made some gains. That's been really big for us. You know, Kansas, we're looking forward to it. We know, we feel like we know what went wrong at Chicago, why we didn't have a car that could run up in the top 5.

We're pretty sure we're going to Kansas the right way, setup wise. I think we should be pretty good.

Q. How much of it is that car, if you had a chassis that good, is it just a matter of if you get near the setups, you know you're going to be in good shape because the car is good?

Kahne: We really put the right setup in when we started and just fine tuned on it all weekend long including the race. I remember at Texas, we were so far back at one point and couldn't go anywhere, and that was that car -- Chicago, we were 23rd and couldn't do a darned thing all race long. So you definitely can miss it.

I feel like the car we had at the all-star race was equally as good as that car, if not better, and we've been in two wrecks with that car. So things just happen. You have to have the right breaks, and with the car we've had, we've had all the right breaks.

Q. One of the first things Tony Stewart said after the New Hampshire race is how worried he was about doing exactly what happened and affecting the race by taking somebody out. Have you had any communications with Tony since the race, and secondly, with a 182-point deficit to make up, are you guys as a team going to have to be more aggressive with either setups or engine packages than you otherwise would be?

Kahne: I think it will be the same stuff we have. It's really good, car wise, setup wise. I feel like we have as good as anybody out there, any organization out there, I don't care who it is.

But Tony actually called me yesterday, we talked about things, and it's not -- he just feels bad that, you know, that I was there when he spun out. I mean, that's just a racing thing and things happen, and we lost a bunch of points, but that's racing.

We had an appearance together, and so I've been up in Detroit and was with Tony for probably three or for hours today, and there's not a problem between us. You know, it's just a difficult, you know, kind of time. Tony feels bad that he did that, it's spun, and I wish we had those points. That's the way racing goes.

Q. The setup that you said you're going to stand pat on, are you going to be more aggressive as far as gambling with strategy and that kind of thing?

Kahne: Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of stuff I would think that we can maybe be more aggressive on. But at the same time, you're kind of -- there's certain ways that you go about it and certain crews have their own ideas. And I don't really think that if Kenny Francis, I don't think he'll change anything, because that's going to change our whole game plan. I think the game plan, he has more wins than anybody else this year, so I imagine he'll stick to it.

We'll just do everything we can to make the car ready and put ourselves in position late in the race to go for it.

Q. Your team, you face a situation that happens a lot in other sports where you've worked so hard to get into the playoff that once you get there, there's this kind of little letdown, and it's nothing that your team did, it's just kind of like let go a little bit. But in this format you have enough time with eight races to go where you can get that momentum going again. Does your team feel like, okay, we've had our bad luck out of the way, it's time to really move forward, is that kind of the attitude you're taking?

Kahne: I would hope so. I feel like we've had as many great races that we've had this season, we've had some tough ones, too. Before the Chase, a month before the Chase, we were struggling, and now we get into the Chase and we're the best car in the last five races coming into the Chase, and next thing you know, we're struggling again. That has nothing to do with the driver as far as I can see or the team, the chew chief, crew chief, it's just racing, it's tough times. There's nowhere to go Sunday and maybe if I -- if we started further forward, or maybe it wouldn't have mattered if we started further back, but you don't know that going in. I think we'll keep doing the same things we're doing and just hope we get the right breaks. If we get the right breaks, we're going to be fast.

Q. I don't think anybody has won at Kansas Speedway after qualifying out of the top 20, how important is a good qualifying for you?

Kahne: I think usually when you qualify, a lot of the times it's kind of off your setups and you realize if your car is going to be pretty good in the race, you usually qualify pretty good. So that happens. But you never know. I mean, we qualified 21st last week and we felt like, and there was a lot of people there that knew that my car was one of the best cars Saturday during practice, and it was going to be Sunday, too.

So it's just, you know, it all depends on your setups, how you work together, the communication on Saturday during the two hours of practice.