Kasey Kahne Still Outside of Top10
Depsite winning his fifth race of the NASCAR season, Kasey Kahne is still 30 points out of 10th place in the Nextel Cup standings.
Sep 5, 2006
Mark Martin dominated the Busch Series event at California, but Kahne was able to master the fuel mileage game.
Kahne would dominate the Nextel Cup event on Sunday by leading 132 if the 250 laps paced around the 2-mile facility but nearly watched 20-year old rookie Reed Sorenson steal his thunder with a fuel mileage surprise. Sorenson would run out of gas with 2 lap remaining.
"I came here telling myself, 'You've got to win. You've got to win. You have to go out there and lead laps'." Kahne said.
But the win did involve some adversity thanks to an assessed speeding penalty midway through the race, which relegated Kahne to 24th place on the ensuing restart. He would rally back and win his NASCAR Nextel Cup leading fifth win of the 2006 season.
"I just can't thank this team enough. They just worked their butts off to get us back in this Chase and at least now we have a chance going into Richmond next week."
Despite five wins, Kahne still sits 11th in the NASCAR Nextel Cup standings just 30 points behind 10th place Jeff Burton.
The messed up thing about this Chase for the Championship format is that Kahne could win his sixth race of the season and still miss out on competing for the championship, all the while Jeff Burton and Mark Martin have zero wins combined and they could win the championship.
Martin finished 12th and Burton finished 16th, as both NASCAR veterans upheld their positions in the top ten in the Nextel Cup standings. Martin is 32 points up on Kahne, while Burton is only 30 points above water.
Dale Earnhardt Jr finished in 2nd position, his career best at the California Speedway. Earnhardt Jr has moved up to 6th in the Nextel Cup standings 77 points ahead of Kahne.
And for the first time since the eighth race of the year after Phoenix, Jimmie Johnson is not the NASCAR Nextel Cup points standings leader. Matt Kenseth will possess a 9-point lead over Johnson heading into Richmond next weekend.
NASCAR Nextel Cup rookie Clint Bowyer finally had some luck go his way as he gambled on fuel mileage to post his career high third place finish. Two weeks ago at Michigan, Bowyer had third place in the bag when he blew a motor with three laps remaining.
Quote of the week
Mark Martin his car's response to the track's ever changing conditions
"It was a winner in the sun and lost its mind when it got dark.'
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