FORT WORTH, Texas -- The next step in Kasey Kahne's Cup career is unknown, and the six-year veteran is completely unconcerned.

“

To be in the position I'm in now and know where I'm gonna be in 2012, to have the opportunity with Rick Hendrick and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports -- it's an unbelievable opportunity. I can't wait to get that started.

”

-- KASEY KAHNE

Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, Kahne, who is seven races into his seventh season with the only team he's ever competed with in Cup, said first, he wasn't concerned with the plan his next team owner, Rick Hendrick, would put in place and second, he was most concerned with successfully closing 2010 with Richard Petty Motorsports, for whom he qualified the No. 9 Ford fifth for Sunday's Samsung Mobile 500.

"It's been a great week," Kahne said. "To be in the position I'm in now and know where I'm gonna be in 2012, to have the opportunity with Rick Hendrick and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports -- it's an unbelievable opportunity. I can't wait to get that started.

"Now I'm focused again on just making sure that the No. 9 car, our whole team, works well together and communicates well together; do everything we can the rest of this season to perform, enjoy ourselves, win races -- and I still feel like we have a shot at the Chase."

It would appear Kahne's biggest concern would be exactly where he'll race next season, since Hendrick has the maximum four drivers under contract through the end of 2011, when Mark Martin will pass the No. 5 Chevrolet to Kahne. Kahne said that wasn't the case.

"I'll work through it with Mr. Hendrick and figure out exactly what we need to do in '11 that makes the most sense," Kahne said. "As far as right now, I still don't know and I'm leaving it up to those guys. They made the commitment to me and Rick said he'll make sure it's right, and I took that as 'I think it'll be a pretty good opportunity, a pretty good situation I'll be in next year.'

"In order to know I'll be in the 5 after that, I was able to take somewhat of a risk and wait a month or two months -- whatever it is -- to figure out what 2011 will be. But the future will definitely be really good to be a part of that [Hendrick] team and part of that organization."

Kahne said until Martin approached him in September 2009 to ask if he was interested in coming to Hendrick, he'd never thought about leaving the former Evernham Motorsports, where he made his Cup debut in the 2004 Daytona 500. (Continued)