Kasey Kahne: "That was the best car I've had in my life. I don't know what happened. The front end fell down and we had a bad vibration before that." Credit: Autostock

Sure victory slips away from Kahne once again

CONCORD, N.C. -- Oftentimes, it seems some athletes and teams must overcome heartbreak before they're astrologically cleared to achieve excellence.

For what seems the umpteenth time this Nextel Cup season, Kahne had a car capable of going to Victory Lane, but this time it appeared he was a lock.

UAW-GM Quality 500 •   Results •   Standings Victory Lane Jimmie Johnson completes the season sweep at Lowe's Disappointing Kahne's dominating performance ends up in the wall Nowhere to go J.Gordon spins and gets tagged by Rusty Wallace Spin cycle Vickers' night ends early has he tags the wall Near disaster Busch, Gordon involved in a wreck on Lap 1

Ask his competitors, they'll tell you.

"The 9 car was the class of the field," said eventual winner Jimmie Johnson.

Third-place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr.: "The 9 car was so fast I almost pretended like I was leading the race. Trying to catch him, I just burned my car up."

It's understandable. Kahne was seven seconds ahead.

That's roughly an entire straightaway.

Overall, the 24-year-old rookie led four times for a race-high 207 laps. But on lap 268 the stars were once again knocked out of whack. Kahne was the race leader on that lap when the right front tire blew on his Mopar Dodge, sending him hard into the outside wall.

"When he had that problem everybody else was back in it," Junior said. "Without that problem I'll assume he'd have gone to Victory Lane pretty easily."

He wouldn't get the chance to fulfill that promise. His night was over.

"That was the best car I've had in my life," Kahne said, somehow able to grin widely. "I don't know what happened. The front end fell down and we had a bad vibration before that.

"We got a vibration and something broke before we were going to pit. The front end just fell down and went into the wall. I really don't know what happened."

One thing that most certainly happened was Kahne's most recent bid at victory was once again foiled by misfortune.

"We had a great car but we just haven't been able to have the cards our way," crew chief Tommy Baldwin said. "We should have won several races by now, but it is what it is and we'll just have to go on down the road.

"I just told Kasey that we were all going to learn from this. This was something that was out of our control, but we've gone through a lot of that this year."