Kasey Kahne drives his No. 9 Sprint Car to a fourth-place finish in Australia. Credit: Daniel Beard

Kahne finishes fourth in self-titled Aussie race

Apparently, there's still one place in the English-speaking world where no one has seen a Kasey Kahne television commercial.

	Kasey Kahne won his heat race. Credit: Daniel Beard
	DREAM VACATION Kasey Kahne went on vacation to Australia, but couldn't quite escape the racing bug.  •   Complete story, click here

The NASCAR driver has been able to walk the streets of Sydney, Australia, in relative obscurity for the past 11 days while on a busman's holiday.

"It's been a lot different," Kahne said in an interview with Australia's Sprintcar World. "It's been nice just to be somewhere with the great beaches. We went up in the country, up in the mountains where there are some wineries and just all over the Gold Coast.

"We went through Sydney and had a really good time at some of the local pubs and the harbor there. I just enjoyed myself and now it's time to race."

After two nights of thrilling the crowd at Tyrepower Parramatta City Raceway, Kahne's ability to stay inconspicuous may have come to an end.

He finished fourth Monday in the second of two Kasey Kahne International Sprintcars/Coca-Cola Track Championship races at the .28-mile dirt oval in Grenville, a victim of a poor qualifying run that left him with a 14th-place starting position.

Americans Kasey Kahne, Steve Kinser (11) and Donny Schatz (15) show love of country prior to racing. Credit: Gary Reid

Kahne was only 20th fastest of the 59 entries during time trials, but won his heat race and steadily worked his way through the field during the A-main feature to finish behind red-hot North Dakota native Donny Schatz, Joey Saldana in one of Kahne's team cars and Australian Peter Murphy, now a resident of Fresno, Calif.

"I grew up wanting to race Sprint cars and dirt tracks, and Australia was always a place where a lot of the guys went during our winters," Kahne said. "It was something I always wanted to do but didn't have the chance to do it before ... so it's nice to finally be here and race for a couple of nights."

Now it's back to the States -- and testing for the Daytona 500 -- as the all-too-short offseason ends for Kahne and the rest of the Nextel Cup crowd.