 | | Credit: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images |
By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
March 11, 2005
10:21 PM EST (03:21 GMT)
LAS VEGAS -- Things are a lot quieter for Kasey Kahne these days than they were at this time last year. In his rookie season, Kahne entered Week 3 as the toast of Nextel Cup -- he finished second at Rockingham and followed that up with the Bud Pole at Las Vegas. Heading into Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, Kahne sits a lowly 34th in the standings and badly needs a top finish to avoid losing more ground. "There is a lot of pressure this weekend. We need to run good," Kahne said. "We need to perform -- we have not so far this season. We have some good cars but have not had the good finishes." Things came tougher here this weekend than a year ago, when Kahne blew away with the field with a track-record lap of 174.904 mph. He went on to finish second to Matt Kenseth. "We had the pole and led a bunch of laps in the race, seemed like a pretty flawless weekend and this weekend it will be a little harder to do that," Kahne said. Kahne's stellar rookie season seemed to build momentum towards a Chase run in his sophomore year; but his season has gotten off to a frustrating start. He is already 200 points behind leader Kurt Busch after two weeks. But Kahne qualified a solid seventh on Friday at Las Vegas. It wasn't 2004, but Kahne picked up considerably from the first practice, when he was 13th-best. A good qualifying run was key for Kahne, who qualified mid-pack two weeks ago at Fontana before crashing his Dodge with 90 laps to go. The resulting 40th-place finish was a potential momentum-killer, but he bounced back on Friday at Vegas. Qualifying in the top 10 is a coveted honor at Las Vegas, which has one of the more difficult pit road entrances on tour. "It's huge," Kahne said. "It's really tough to get blocked in with a couple of good cars and not be able to get out of the pits. That will kill you on the track. "It's a big deal. It's good to qualify good and pick your own destiny." | 
