Dominant Evernham team comes away disappointed

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The frustration of Kasey Kahne mirrored his Evernham Motorsports team at Texas Motor Speedway.

Kahne dominated the Samsung/RadioShack 500, leading six times for 148 laps Sunday. But he got caught a lap down during a yellow flag, and though Kahne rallied to finish second, he came up less than a tenth of a second short of a victory for the second time this season.

"A lot more painful," Kahne said when comparing this second to runner-up finishes at Rockingham and Las Vegas. "The other ones were great. This one kinda sucks."

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The rest of the day kinda sucked for Evernham's team, too. Bill Elliott started second, led the first 19 laps and was running in the top 10 when he had a flat tire, spun and slapped the wall. The part-time No. 91 team ended up 36th.

Two spots ahead was Jeremy Mayfield, who got caught up in an accident on a restart when rookies Brian Vickers and Scott Wimmer got together. Mayfield, who started at the rear of the field because of an engine change, had battled back to run in the top 15 when he crashed.

What could've been a glorious day instead ended up with Evernham having two wrecked cars and one frustrated driver.

That would be Kahne, who railed at NASCAR for the number of laps run under caution after he was stuck in the back of the pack. There were three cautions in the final 57 laps, but Kahne was upset the three yellows took 20 laps.

"NASCAR really needs to look into yellow-flag laps," Kahne said. "We had 15-20 laps that didn't need to be run. That's basically why we didn't win. We didn't need much more time to pass.

"I didn't see any debris half the time. They were putting Speedy Dry down the bottom of the backstretch where nobody runs. It's ridiculous how long they took. That's something NASCAR really needs to look into. They do the one-lap safety rule, and that's great. But the extra eight, 10, 20 laps that they run, that's ridiculous."

Kahne moved into second place with 20 laps to go, 1.5 seconds behind Elliott Sadler. Kahne slowly picked away at the lead, getting to Sadler's bumper with five laps to go.

Kahne was running the high line but couldn't get beside Sadler until Turn 4 coming to the checkered flag. The finish looked similar to Rockingham, when Kahne closed on Matt Kenseth and charged inside coming to the finish. There, Kenseth was .01 seconds ahead. At Texas, Sadler was .028 seconds ahead.

That's .038 seconds in two races.

"I don't know if I'm tired of it," Kahne said. "I'm tired of running second by .1 or .01 or whatever it ends up being.

"It was really an up day all day long except that yellow that put us a lap down. It was a tough day, but, man, we had a great racecar."

Elliott had a strong car, too, running an in-house Evernham chassis. But the semi-retired driver said there was "probably some debris on the track," and Elliott ran over it. Elliott was stuck in the high lane as the field darted below him.

	Jeremy Mayfield's day ended when he collided with Scott Wimmer. Credit: AP

"I just couldn't get to the bottom," Elliott said. "It went down on me before I could get in."

The tire eventually went flat, and Elliott did a lazy spin into the outside wall.

"I had a good racecar," Elliott said. "I hope Kasey can pull these deal off. His car's really good on long runs. My car got a little bit too tight.

"I thought I had a pretty good car. I was having a good day, but that's part of it."

Mayfield understands that, too.

"We kept working hard, and the car was really good at the end," Mayfield said. "I think we were headed for at least a top-10 finish, and then we got caught up in whatever happened on that restart. It looked like a couple of cars checked up in front of me, and there wasn't anywhere to go.

"My hat's off to Kasey and his team today. He had a great car and drove a great race. He's coming so close it's only going to be a matter of time before he ends up in Victory Lane."

Only then will Kahne -- and the rest of Evernham Motorsports -- not be frustrated.