After Vegas test, Kahne sees a return to past glory (cont'd)

"I think mainly it's just a matter of time. The more you work with the car, the better it gets. I'm starting to like it. I mean, I didn't care for it much last year at times. I thought we were pretty far off. Right now we seem like we're kind of in the ballpark [so] we'll keep working and we'll be where we need to be."

Even with his evergreen nature, Kahne's looking forward to kicking off this season in less than three weeks with the Daytona 500, followed up two weeks later with the UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas.

"I think we have a lot to learn still," Kahne said. "But we've made gains. I feel like when we come back for the race we'll be pretty strong.

"But I always feel pretty good about everything. Even last year when we were struggling, going into every Sunday, I thought, 'Hey, we can run good today. We can get things figured out and go fast.'

"A lot of times we didn't. I try to look at the bright side, try to make things right. I think they'll be good this year. It might take us a little while. I'm kind of hoping these kinds of tests -- here and California -- is going to be really good for us."

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this year's test was that Kahne's GEM teammates, the veteran Elliott Sadler and Canadian newcomer Patrick Carpentier, showed plenty of promise as well.

Sadler had two top-10 showings on the four speed charts, including sixth on the final afternoon; while Carpentier, after Kahne took a test-drive in his No. 10 Charger and suggested some set-up improvements, moved up to a session-best 21st on the final time sheet.

"They're trying things, we're trying things," Kahne said. "I just have driven these cars more than Patrick so I have a different way of explaining things compared to what he does. It was good for me to feel what it felt like, and also for his team to kind of listen to me explain it and talk to Patrick about it.

"It wasn't what I would have wanted, but there were certain things his car was doing that were really good, and then there were other things that I didn't care for as much. We talked about that stuff.

"I didn't go any faster than Patrick did. We ran about the same speed in the car. They just need to keep working on it and get him a better platform; a better setup and they'll go faster.

"It's hard to figure that stuff out. It's hard to know -- to get into the sport and know, 'OK, what's a good car, what's a bad car? That feels pretty good. Is that really pretty good or is it not pretty good?' It's difficult."