April 12, 2006

By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

Kasey Kahne really knows how to celebrate a birthday.

The young NASCAR Cup driver, who turned 26 on Monday, spent the day before his birthday on the 1½-mile quad oval track of Texas Motor Speedway. Starting on the pole, Kahne led 63 laps en route to Victory Lane, holding off NASCAR past champion Matt Kenseth and two-time champ Tony Stewart for the win.

Kasey Kahne

The victory was the second of the season for the No. 9 Evernham Motorsports team, which also won at Atlanta in March.

Two wins in the first seven races of 2006 is especially noteworthy for Kahne. By this time last season, he was already mired in a disappointing sophomore slump from which he would not fully recover.

In 2004, his rookie year, Kahne was a legitimate contender to make the Chase for the Championship in its inaugural season. After narrowly missing the cut, he ended the year ranked 13th in the standings with 4 poles, 14 top-10 finishes, and Rookie of the Year honors.

In 2005, however, Kasey and team struggled. Despite notching his first Cup series victory at Richmond, Kahne ended the season a disappointing 23rd in points with nine DNF's.

Now, on the heels of his second win of the 2006 season, the Washington native has climbed to third in NEXTEL Cup point standings, just 46 points behind current leader Jimmie Johnson.

What a difference a year makes.

"(Last season) I might have crashed it," Kahne commented after Sunday's impressive victory. "Who knows? Today I was able to stay calm enough. Five hundred miles is a long time, and we were able to make a lot of adjustments to try to make the car better, similar to Atlanta. We started out good, fell back to 11th or 12th, and did the same thing today in the middle part of the race and came back forward. I think just working with Kenny and my cousin Kole, he's my spotter, they all do a good job of keeping me calm and telling me there's a pit stop coming up, let's think about what we need to do and not overdrive the racecar. Just drive it to where it can go at this point in time and make some adjustments on it."

In addition to Sunday's win, Kahne was the appreciative recipient of a special birthday present from his fan club members. Prior to his pole-winning run at Friday's Texas qualifying, Kahne publicly acknowledged the Kasey Kahne Fan Club for raising money on his behalf, which was donated to various charities to commemorate his birthday.

With seven races down and 29 to go, the 2006 NASCAR season is still young and, at age 26, so is the driver of the No. 9 car.

But at the moment, it's good to be Kasey Kahne.

"We've got the momentum on our side right now," Kahne said after Sunday's victory. "Everybody is doing a great job. Things can change. I've been on the other side of it a lot, too. I hope we can keep this momentum going. We knew this Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger team had the potential to do what we're doing. Now, we've just got to keep on doing it."

Though too late for his birthday, a championship would certainly make a great early Christmas gift.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN. Although we may not always agree with what is said, we do feel it's our duty to give a voice to those who have something relevant to say about the sport of auto racing.