Kahne now has to maintain gift of confidence from fans

CONCORD, N.C. -- Kasey Kahne can rest easy now, although it's clear he won't.

The same can be said for Kahne's intensely loyal legions of fans -- particularly the ones who took great offense at the mere suggestion that perhaps he didn't really deserve to be in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race that he won recently at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

After following that victory up with Sunday's triumph in the grueling Coca-Cola 600 at the same track, there is no doubt Kahne is an All-Star again. His first points race victory in 53 tries erased any lingering doubts about Kahne's ability to get the job done, particularly when he sets his own often doubting mind right and has the dual confidence in himself and his team that is required to win races at the Sprint Cup level.

By Kahne's own admission, that hasn't always been the case. In fact, it wasn't even the case as recently as just prior to his All-Star conquest.

"Confidence is huge," Kahne admitted. "I feel like I gave better input this week [for the 600] than I did, you know, last week in the All-Star Race. I did good in that race, but in the [Sprint Showdown] I didn't do that good; in practice [for the All-Star Race] I didn't do that good and I let myself get down about it.

"So I feel like I've stepped up and given Kenny [Francis] more to work with as a crew chief, and I've given Kenny and Chad [Johnston], our engineer, more to work with -- just more on what the car is doing throughout the entire corner. And I wasn't doing that at the start of the year or, say, even at Darlington [two weeks earlier]. I think that's a big part of confidence, and it shows on the racetrack."

Coca-Cola 600

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Kasey Kahne	Dodge
2.	Greg Biffle	Ford
3.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
4.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
5.	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet
6.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
7.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
8.	Elliott Sadler	Dodge
9.	Carl Edwards	Ford
10.	David Reutimann	Toyota

• Results | Points | Lap-by-Lap
• Video Highlights | Photo Gallery

Hail to the fans
By now everyone knows the Cinderella story that was Kahne's on All-Star night. He failed to qualify automatically for the big event because he hadn't won a race in the previous year, had never previously won the All-Star affair, and he failed to finish first or second in the aforementioned Sprint Showdown -- where non-qualifiers get the opportunity to race their way into the main event.

Kahne was included in the All-Star event anyhow when he became the one driver voted in by the fans. Whether one agrees with this system or not, it is the current system and all he did subsequently was take advantage of the opportunity.

George Gillett, co-owner of the Gillett Evernham Motorsports team for which Kahne drives the No. 9 Dodge, said that the fan vote provided the first necessary boost to Kahne's confidence. Everything else flowed forth from that, according to Gillett and his fellow co-owner, former crew chief Ray Evernham.

"There really was a turning point, in my opinion," said Gillett, who bought a controlling interest in the organization in August of last year. "It was the fans. When the fans voted Kasey in last weekend, it changed everything. Then Kenny and Kasey had a great car. Ray's genius really showed. So thanks to the fans because it really came out of them."

Evernham added that no matter how much the influx of cash Gillett brought to the operation he formerly owned by himself, thus improving the resources available to the teams, it still comes down to the human beings involved in putting it all together.

"This is still a sport," Evernham said. "You can have the machinery; you can have the computers; you can have all the technology you want. But the human element is still the biggest part of what we do.

"That little bit of confidence, that little bit of bounce in your step, that little bit of motivation, it maybe makes you look a little bit harder at something, makes you be a little bit more confident in your decisions. When you feel like the best, you act like the best, and you have more confidence in the things that you do."

Strong company
Kahne and the No. 9 team are brimming with that confidence now. In addition to simply winning NASCAR's longest and most physically and mentally demanding race for the second time in two years, Kahne also moved to 12th in the 2008 point standings.

The top 12 drivers in points after the first 26 races qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship over the final 10. Two years ago when he won six races and captured nine poles, Kahne made the Chase but had to settle for eighth when he couldn't conjure up enough magic -- or was it confidence then, too? -- over the home stretch.

Nonetheless, Kahne entered last year as a bona fide star, one of the favorites to compete for the championship once again and this time perhaps even win it. His dream season never materialized. He failed to win a single race, registered only one top-five finish and had almost as many DNFs (six) as top-10s (eight).

He had to rally to finish 19th in the points, after falling as low as 36th at one point early in the year. Critics charged that he was fine when his equipment was good, but that he couldn't take a sub-par car and coax it to a finish better than it might have deserved -- a la Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and other prime-time drivers who always seem to hang out at the top of the standings.

That criticism still hangs out there. Confidence, a natural byproduct of success like Kahne has just enjoyed over the last two weekends, can help him develop the mindset to erase it once and for all.

Kahne was doing a post-race interview Sunday when he was told that he is the sixth driver in NASCAR history to win both the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same year.

"The other ones are Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Davey Allison and Darrell Waltrip," Kahne said. "I mean, to have my name with those names, I think that's probably one of the neatest things that I've ever done in racing, and it's all because of my team and all because of these guys I work with."

Well, it's not all because of that. Kahne's fans, and obviously his own driving ability, had plenty to do with it.

Now if he's going to truly build on it, he will have to continue believing in himself and his team as strongly as his own formidable fan base does. That means doing so when the going gets tough, too, and not just on those nights when it all seems right again.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.