Kahne snaps drought with Brickyard 400 win

Sunday, 23 July 2017


By RACER Staff / Image by Matthew Thacker/LAT

Kasey Kahne got an overtime do-over with daylight almost gone, and his jump on Brad Keselowski helped him end an agonizing 102-race winless streak and win a wild Brickyard 400 that saw a record number of cautions.

After Jimmie Johnson's crash – amid a three-wide run into Turn 3 with Keselowski and Kahne – brought out a caution with two laps to go, Kahne was leading and Keselowski second on the first overtime attempt, with Kahne choosing the outside lane in a reverse strategy call from an earlier restart. But Kahne appeared to hold back before the restart zone while Keselowski's lane pushed forward, and it led to an almost immediate caution and red flag when Michael McDowell pushed Trevor Bayne too far and triggered an eight-car crash that blocked the track.
But on the second attempt – with Keselowski taking the outside lane to avoid Speedy Dry – Kahne pulled in front of Keselowski and held through the first two corners, and he was leading at the line when Denny Hamlin hit the wall and triggered a three-car wreck behind them on the backstretch.
"The [restart] before, it just didn't work, everything went wrong," an exhausted Kahne told NBC Sports. "The final one everything went right. And once I got into Turn 1 I had good power and was able to clear him."
It's the first win for Kahne since a victory at Atlanta on Aug. 31, 2014, and the first win for Kahne's crew chief Keith Rodden. Kahne's victory is the 10th Brickyard 400 win for Hendrick Motorsports, who won five with Jeff Gordon and four with Jimmie Johnson, who was one of multiple cars to wreck hard in Sunday's race when he crashed. It also once again kept Roger Penske from his first Brickyard win.
Amid speculation about his future in the No. 5, Kahne said the win meant more in a career sense, although "to win at this track is unreal.
"It feels good to win, you know?" he said. "For all these people that work so hard, it feels good to get into Victory Lane and show that we can do it if things go our way.”
Keselowski finished second, followed by Ryan Newman, Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth.
“Kasey, he did a heck of a job today, he drove a hell of a race," Keselowski said. "I was happy for him but of course I wanted it for my team. I thought I was in the right spot. You’d seen all day where you get somebody on your outside in the corner and they got real loose, but he drove in there and just…stuck. I don’t know, probably got the wrong lane there, made the wrong call. The double-file restarts, everyone was on edge there and then some, and I guess I just guessed wrong on the last one.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s hopes of winning in his final visit to the Brickyard were dashed when he ran into the back of Trevor Bayne in a stackup on lap 76. Earnhardt's car began smoking with apparent radiator damage and his day was done.
Kyle Busch was denied his third straight Brickyard win when a side-by-side battle for the lead with Martin Truex Jr. on a restart ended in a major crash on lap 112 crash. Truex got loose and collected Busch, who had swept the first two stages.