ArticleKahne makes big strides in third Cup season
By Benny Parsons
MSNBC contributor
Last winter marked a turning point in Kasey Kahne's Nextel Cup career. It led him to a series high six wins in 2006, and he's my choice as the comeback driver of the year on NASCAR's top circuit.
A change in Kahne
Kahne told me that he was so bummed out after the 2005 season that he sat down and did a lot of soul searching. He had a miserable year in which he won only one race, experienced a lot of misfortune, and never got a good handle on the Dodge Charger.
Kahne said he gave a lot of thought to what he had to do to become a better driver. His cars were fast enough, but he felt he wasn't getting it done as a driver.
He determined his problem was that his mindset wasn't locked in to running Cup-length races. Instead, he was approaching these races as he did when running sprint events in the late 1990s. In other words, if Kahne was running sixth, he was consumed by trying to pass the car running fifth.
That mentality was the result of his sprint background where the races were 50 laps or less, and drivers forced the action and tried to pass right from the start.
In Cup racing Kahne was too aggressive, and sooner or later that would backfire on him and he would find himself in wrecks. He wasn't taking what the race was giving him, he was trying to force things. He lacked patience on the track.
So after his soul searching, Kahne came to the conclusion he would have to change his ways and he did. It dawned on him that in a 400 or 500 mile race, the car ahead of him might drop back out of contention in a few laps. He didn't have to force passes. He could let the race come to him, and make his moves wisely impetuously.
The race Kahne won in Atlanta last March was a perfect example of his new approach to competing. He sat on the pole, but his car was not right from the start. He faded back in the race, but his crew chief and his team kept making adjustments on the car, he kept his patience, and in the last 100 miles of the race no one could touch him.
The difference in Kahne as a driver is perhaps no more evident than in how he's cut down on getting into trouble on the track. In 2005, he wrecked in 16 of the 36 races. In 2006, he wrecked in only five events.