RICHMOND, Va. — For the second time in three weeks, Kasey Kahne finished among the top 10 in Sprint Cup Series competition. There was a time in his career that would have been par for the course. Right now, it’s an extremely encouraging sign of renewal.
Kahne is coming off his best finish of the still-early 2016 season — a fourth-place run at Richmond International Raceway on Sunday. And it already equals his top effort of 2015 (three fourth-place showings) and puts him in reasonable position to better the mark of three top-five finishes he scored in both the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
Simply put, it appears that Kahne, the 2004 Rookie of the Year, is back on track. His team regained the mojo that he regularly demonstrated just a few years ago with double-digit top-five runs (in 2012 and 2013) and multi-win seasons.
It’s the kind of can-do that resulted in him being hired by the esteemed Hendrick Motorsports organization to compete under its banner for the 2012 season. And it’s meeting the high expectations that this powerhouse team has, considering Kahne’s teammates include six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, perennial winner and the sport’s Most Popular Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the sport’s newest whiz kid, Chase Elliott, who replaced retired four-time champion Jeff Gordon ahead of this season.
Listen to Kahne speak about the uptick in his finishing order and you might be surprised to hear the driver talk as much about the importance of good kumbaya as the comfort of having the best equipment in the garage.
It’s the people that Kahne thinks make the difference. And while that may be a popular catchphrase, Kahne is convinced the belief in his team — and second-year crew chief Keith Rodden — truly has restored his course and energized the crew.
“It just starts with the attitudes of everybody, from myself to the team,” Kahne said. “How we all appreciate each other, work together, know that each particular person is there for a reason and is really good at what each one of us does. I think it’s more being together, being a group, a solid team. To me that started three, four weeks ago, and each week it seems to get better from the previous week. We’re going to keep heading in that direction.
“I think the closer you get as a group, the closer you get with your crew chief, your engineers, the guys on pit road, the car chief, the guys building the race car, all of that is communication to me. All of that kind of makes the whole race on Sunday better when you are better in those areas.”
Judging by the results of Kahne’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team of late, it would be hard to argue with the philosophy. And while next week’s race at Talladega Superspeedway is typically considered a roll of the dice, Kahne has run well there — even scoring runner-up finishes in 2006 and 2009.
And he is even better at Kansas and Charlotte, where the series heads after Talladega. Kahne has four wins at Charlotte — including a sweep of the 2006 season there — and Kansas was one of his three top-five finishes in 2015. He has three pole positions in Kansas and five top-five finishes in his last nine races there.
Although Kahne is hardly saying his team has “arrived,” he does like the direction it has taken.
This past weekend at Richmond, for example, Kahne qualified eighth and was second-fastest in final practice — so the race result was not an anomaly.
“When you have each other’s backs, you work together as a team and you keep getting better,” Kahne said. “That’s where we’ve been. That’s where we’ve been excelling at.
“I think there’s kind of consistency on the whole weekend. There’s more times I look at the scoring pylon and I’m at the top half rather than the bottom half — whether it’s one of the practices, qualifying or race.
“I think it’s a slow process, really. We were so far gone there for a little while, it takes time to start getting back to where we need to be.
“We’re heading in that direction now, so it’s really nice.’”