With Francis, Kahne ready to climb out of early hole

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- He has the boyish movie-star looks. He has fame, complete with captivating television commercials.

And last year he had six victories, more than any other driver in the Nextel Cup Series.

So what in the heck is Kasey Kahne doing sweating out this weekend in the hopes of cracking the top 35 in Cup owner points? Even he doesn't seem so sure of all the reasons why; he's only certain that time is rapidly running out to start turning his season around.

"We've got to start over a little bit," Kahne said. "We've dug ourselves a little hole here."

Kahne will start over in his No. 9 Dodge on Sunday with team director Kenny Francis back on the pit box. The team struggled badly while Francis served a four-race suspension levied by NASCAR after qualifying for the season-opening Daytona 500. Along with the suspension for allegedly altering Kahne's car to give it an aerodynamic advantage, the No. 9 team also was docked 50 driver points and 50 owner points.

Throw in a blown engine in the second race of the season at California, a crash the following week in Las Vegas and the fact that he got caught up in another wreck that was not his fault but relegated him to a 39th-place finish last week in Atlanta, and it all has added up.

The numbers are startling. Heading into Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kahne sits 36th in driver point standings. More importantly, the No. 9 team sits 37th in owner points; after the Bristol race, the fifth of the season, only the top-35 teams in owner points will be guaranteed starting positions for the remainder of the season.

So if Kahne doesn't have a good run Sunday, he could be on the outside looking in at having to qualify on speed for each of the remaining Cup races this season. It is a prospect he could not have envisioned at the beginning of this season. But he said he isn't letting himself get depressed about it -- at least not yet.

"I haven't been down at all," he said. "I think we can turn it around still. It's not like we're out of the Chase or out of the top 35. We can get right back in there this weekend, and then next weekend we can keep gaining. So I still feel pretty decent about it. It's not the end of the world, yet." (Continued)