WRAL Sports Fan

NASCAR

Kahne tunes out NASCAR rumor mill in the offseason

By SceneDaily.com

Jan 7, 2009

Not long ago, as the rumors circulated about the alleged merger between Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises swirled, Kasey Kahne was asked about what he knew.

Kahne is Gillett Evernham’s unofficial No. 1 driver, so he’d be the guy to know, right?

“The Pettys … I don’t know,” Kahne said with a somewhat puzzled look. “I haven’t been a part of that at all.”

Ah, yes, blissful ignorance.

It’s not that Kahne doesn’t care, it’s just that he often tunes out the NASCAR world during the offseason. His mind is on other things, especially if they don’t directly affect him.

“I tune it out for a while,” Kahne said. “I was at a Gillett Young Guns commercial [before Christmas], and there’s [Clint] Bowyer and Kyle Busch and [Ryan] Newman. They were telling me about things that were going on. I hadn’t tuned in to NASCAR in so long, I didn’t know anything.

“I got caught up, but as far as what’s happening with that, I really have no idea.”

Kahne probably wasn’t thinking much about the 2008 Sprint Cup Series season, or at least he likely tried to forget the second half of the year. Winner of two races in 2008, Kahne was eighth in the points standings when back-to-back 40th-place finish all but doomed his chances of making the Chase For The Sprint Cup.

Kahne barely missed the Chase, and then stumbled badly in the final 10 races of the season. He finished in the top 10 only twice, with six finishes outside the top 20.

Kahne remains confident his No. 9 Dodge team can get better for 2009, despite a ban on testing at NASCAR-sanctioned tracks.

“The tracks we won at, the tracks we were best at, we tested at,” Kahne said. “We ran best at those tracks. It’ll be tough, but we’ll keep working on the COT, keep working on our engine program. I have a great team, [crew chief] Kenny Francis is a great leader. We just have to put it all together and be more consistent throughout the year.

“We had a month where we were one of the best teams in Sprint Cup. We need to figure out how to do that more often, and we shouldn’t have a problem making the Chase.”

Kahne said his team will try to find somewhere to test, just to get more experience with the next-generation race car NASCAR uses in the Sprint Cup Series.

The key to the season, Kahne said, will be getting a good start.

“That’s a big part of the season, to get off to a good start, from Daytona, California, Vegas, all the tracks early in the season, to get the team established.” Kahne said. “Without testing, you haven’t worked much with the team. It’s been three, four months off. It’ll be a big difference than what it was in the past. To get off to a good jump will be a real key of making the Chase in ’09.”