DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kasey Kahne came oh-so-close to delivering Leavine Family Racing a breakthrough victory Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. He’s hoping instead that the consolation prize — his first top-five finish with LFR — can serve as a building block for the second half of the season.
Kahne led 17 laps late in Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, sitting in prime position on the front row for the final overtime restart. He shot to the top spot with a nifty move past Martin Truex Jr., but was unable to thwart the momentum of eventual winner Erik Jones, who rocketed past him in the outside lane to take command.
RELATED: Kahne’s run to the finish | Race results | Buckle up! Daytona’s wild ride
“I tried to slow him up, but he was coming fast,” Kahne said of the shuffle on the next-to-last lap. “The gap was pretty big and he was coming fast and I didn’t do a good enough job of stopping him.”
Though a brush with victory was a bittersweet result, the night brought a bright spot to what’s been a trying first season together for Kahne and the Leavine Family operation. The organization’s previous best this year has been 17th place, achieved three times this spring.
The uneven results prompted a change atop the pit box during the Monster Energy Series’ off weekend last month, as the team replaced Travis Mack with interim crew chief Jon Leonard. In the three races that have followed, the team has showed some improvement at Sonoma and endured a 27th-place setback at Chicagoland leading up to Saturday night’s rejuvenating top five.
“I mean, we always knew we could do it,” said Leonard, who also served as interim crew chief for LFR for five races at the end of the 2017 season. “We just had to get all the details right and all the people moving in the right direction and giving Kasey a car that we could compete with. We brought the best car that we’ve had this year on speedways and I think it showed. We led the pack there for a while, started at the back and worked our way up through the field and was able to lead there until the end.”
The effort helped Kahne jump up two spots in the drivers’ standings, but the 26th-place ranking is still far from the competitive level that the team targets. The task now, Kahne says, is to create momentum for the rest of the year, starting next weekend at Kentucky Speedway.
“A fourth’s really, really good for us this time of the year for where we’ve been, on and off,” Kahne said. “It’s a great run. Really excited for the guys and the team. But to be that close at the same time, I knew I had a car capable of winning so it was just a matter of doing it. We just didn’t get the win done, but we got a great result so we’ll keep building on it.”