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Top 10 preview: Kahne will be better second time around
2004 Rewind
0 wins, 4 poles, 13 top fives, 14 top 10's, 13th in pointsThat's when things got interesting.
He finished second to Matt Kenseth by .01 second at Rockingham in week two, followed by another runner-up effort at Las Vegas seven days later. Then he finished third at Atlanta. Four races, three top- three finishes.
When the dust settled in November, Kahne's resume had five second-place finishes on it, along with another eight top fives. If not for a handful of typical rookie hiccups 1 bad pit stops, oil slicks at Dover, etc... — he would have finished the season inside the NASCAR Top 10 instead of stuck back in 13th. Still, winning the '04 Rookie of the Year title that had already all but been handed to Brian Vickers during the preseason is nothing to sneeze at.
Why He Will Finish 6th
How close was Kahne to finishing sixth or better last season. Take your pick — .01 second here, .263 seconds there. Most rookie teams get to experience their growing pains in relative points obscurity, but not Kahne's. They were treated by rivals and media alike as a genuine Cup contender — pressure they certainly earned — but that forced the team to grow up in a hurry. Now, adolescence is over. It's time to run with the big boys."We have spent a lot of time during the winter focusing on the things that went wrong last year," Kahne said during Daytona testing. "For me, that means short tracks and road courses. For the team, it meant (crew chief) Tommy Baldwin and the guys going position by position and figuring out little things they can all do to get better at their jobs. If we all did our part and it comes together like it should, then maybe we can get back some of those races that we should have won."
Which is scary to think about if you're one of the 42 guys trying to beat him.
The All-Telling, All-Knowing Stat: 1
That's the number of top 10's scored by Kahne outside of the top five. That's right, all but one of his top 10 finishes (eighth at Loudon in July) were between second and fifth. Twenty times he finished inside the top 15, six of those falling between 12th and 14th. Top five or bust, baby!
Fantasy Lock: Atlanta
In his two starts at Atlanta last season, Kahne finished third and fifth, despite an average starting spot of 22nd. Coupled with his AMS success in the Busch Series — 7th and 3rd in his last two starts — Hot-lanta on March 20 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX) seems like as good a place as any for Kahne to finally score that elusive first win.
Ryan McGee is the managing editor at NASCAR Images and Senior Producer of NASCAR Nation on SPEED Channel. He can be reached at his e-mail address: rmcgee@foxsports.com.
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