Kasey Kahne got his first top-five finish since his win at RIR. Credit: Autostock'

Kahne comes up just short in Brickyard bid

Evernham driver leads 39 laps, finishes second to Stewart

INDIANAPOLIS -- Sweat streaming down his face, his Dodge cap pulled low over his eyes, Kasey Kahne stared at the television screen while awaiting his turn to speak with the media after Sunday's Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

What was Kahne watching? Tony Stewart's post-race celebration -- and wondering, perhaps, how close he came to being the one out there enjoying the victory instead of explaining why he finished second.

	Kasey Kahne Credit: Autostock
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Stewart is a native Hoosier, but Kahne spent three summers in Indianapolis running open-wheeled cars, so a victory at the Brickyard would have rated very highly on his wish list.

"This is probably the closest racing home that I have," Kahne said. "Living here for three summers and running a lot of races around here, this is where I moved from Washington after I graduated.

"It's definitely a great place. Really, I remember growing up watching the Indy 500 before the Brickyard 400 was even here. It's always been a track that I wanted to win at."

Kahne has made two starts at Indy and has two top-fives. But minutes after Sunday's race concluded, Kahne was still thinking about what he could have done to hold off Stewart in the closing laps.

"We were really trying to free our car up there at the end and when it went green, I was watching Tony and he was a lot looser than I was and I drove by him," Kahne said of the Lap 134 pass in Turn 4 that put him in front. "From there, we were just saving fuel, working on fuel mileage."

But when Jimmie Johnson crashed hard in Turn 4 on Lap 145, bringing out what would be the final caution, Kahne's car went tight and left him a defenseless target.

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"Once that caution came out, everything was good," Kahne said. "Just the tires cooling off tightened the car a little bit and my car didn't need to be tightened up.

"It was perfect before that. I just pushed off all four corners after that and just couldn't get the run down the straightaway."

Even so, Kahne was able to chase Stewart down in the corners. However, Stewart used a weaving pattern on the straightaways that affected Kahne's ability to take advantage.

"He was running that when I was catching him before," Kahne said. "He was just trying to break the draft. My key spots were Turn 1 and Turn 3 and Tony was breaking my draft down the straightaway so I couldn't get close enough to him to pass him through those areas.

"He held me off for about five laps when my car was a lot better than his. That just shows that Tony Stewart knows what he's doing."

Stewart was one of the first to congratulate Kahne on his first Nextel Cup victory in Richmond, so Kahne was willing to take his runner-up status in stride.

"If you've got to run second, it's good to run it behind Tony for his first win here."