KAHNE LEADS TEAMMATES TO CHECKERED FLAG
For the second consecutive race – and fourth time this season – Kasey Kahne led his Hendrick Motorsports teammates to the checkered flag Saturday night at Kansas Speedway.
He piloted the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS to a 15th-place result.
For much of the first half of the race, Kahne was running inside the top 10 after weaving his way through the field from a 31st-place starting position. But he noted that after an extended red flag period following a multiple-car incident, the car experienced looser handling.
“The guys did a great job tonight,” Kahne said. “We had good pit stops and we had a good car. After the red flag the car just got really loose for whatever reason. We had a good run, though, until that point.”
VIBRATIONS AFFECT NO. 88 TEAM
Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the checkered flag 20th, but the driver of the No. 88 Mountain Dew DEW-S-A Chevrolet SS felt the car was capable of a better result.
“We had about a 10th- to a 15th-place finish lined up,” Earnhardt said. “And I came in for a vibration that wasn’t a loose wheel and we lost a lap and we got it back and ended up 20th. We had a much better car than that.”
Earnhardt acknowledged that vibrations were an issue throughout Saturday night’s event, though it didn’t always mean that the car had a loose wheel, which is a typical diagnosis for such a vibration.
“For whatever reason the car had a lot of vibration issues,” he said. “I don’t think we had only but one loose wheel tonight. Looking back through our notes, this is a track where we all kind of complain a lot about vibrations and thinking we have loose wheels when we don’t.”
Looking ahead, he said the team can still take away a big positive – the No. 88 Chevy continues to showcase great speed. Now, he said, it’s up to him and the team to put it all together.
“The car is fast, we’ve got to feel good about that,” Earnhardt said. “Making the car fast is a whole other project that we don’t need to worry about because the car has got good speed.”
“Hopefully, we can get going here in the next couple of weeks and make a couple of good runs.”