Kahne to have surgery on both knees after season

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Kasey Kahne will have arthroscopic surgery on both his knees next week to alleviate a condition he's suffered since birth.

The procedure, scheduled for Tuesday morning, will remove from each knee the plica, a sleeve of tissue that's left over from birth and can cause irritation. The surgery will take about 35 minutes per knee, Kahne said, and he'll need about six weeks of rehabilitation.

Kahne

"I guess the older I get, the more I work out, play basketball, things like that, it's inflamed it," Kahne said Friday after winning the pole for Sunday's Sprint Cup event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"It's just rubbing like kind of a hole in my kneecaps. It's just rubbing against each other to the point where it's no fun. When I get out of the car, a lot of times I limp around. When I walk around a lot, if I go to Vegas and walk around for a day, I can't walk the next day. It's just kind of a pain is all it is. But it's not bad by no means. It's very simple surgery that we'll get out of the way and be ready to go by Jan. 1. I'll go to the Chili Bowl and be good to go."

Kahne is finishing this season driving for Red Bull, the organization he will compete for all of next year before moving over to Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 car in 2012. His pole Friday was his third of the season, joining two others he won with Richard Petty Motorsports, the team with which he started this year.

He plans to spend most of Tuesday on the couch, and be up and around by Thanksgiving. "By Thursday I'll be pretty good, so I'll be able to eat full-on Thanksgiving," he said. "Look forward to it."