NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Kahne In A Good Place
Time Warner Cable will sponsor Kasey Kahne for four races next year…
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 11, 2012   Charlotte, NC
Exec. V. P. of East Region of Time Warner Cable, Carol Hevey, (Left) NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne (Center) and Exec. V. P. and CMO Time Warner Cable, Jeffrey Hirsch (Right) at unveil of Kasey Kahne's No. 5 Time Warner Cable car. (Getty Images)
Kasey Kahne’s first year at Hendrick Motorsports has been a solid success so far, but the best may still be to come.

Heading into Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the 32-year-old Enumclaw, Wash., native is ranked fourth in points and is on track to have the best season of his career.

Wednesday night at Hendrick’s campus in Concord, N.C., Kahne was the star of the show at a team party where Time Warner Cable was introduced as Kahne’s primary sponsor for both the BofA 500 and four more races next season.

The introduction, which was co-hosted by the team, TWC and SPEED, featured a life-sized cake replica of Kahne’s No.5 Chevrolet made by chef Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes.

Kahne, who has a previous best points finish of eighth in 2006, will be one of the favorites on Saturday night at CMS. He won the Coca-Cola 600 here in May and has four victories and seven top-five finishes in 17 starts at the 1.5-mile oval.

Although he trails leader Brad Keselowski by 36 points with six races to go in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Kahne thinks he can still make a title run if the leaders stumble.

“I don’t think it’s too late because a blown engine, a crash — any of that stuff — for Jimmie (Johnson, second in points) or Brad, anyone from Denny (Hamlin, third) on back still has a chance.”

Realistically, to win the championship this year, Kahne knows it will require not only continued good finishes from his team, but a couple of poor ones on the part of the leaders.

“If one of them had a big problem early in the race, you can lose so many points,” said Kahne. “If they don’t, we could probably win all we wanted and still not get back in it.”

So the plan is, business as usual for the rest of the season.

After a brutal start to the 2012 campaign that found him 31st in points after six races, Kahne has rebounded nicely, with two victories, nine top-five and 15 top-10 finishes.

“I just feel like for our team, we still need to finish like we’ve been working on,” said Kahne. “We’ve come a long way this season and we’re as strong right now as we’ve been all year, and we need to keep that going and carry that momentum right through the off-season and into next year.”

After surviving the train wreck that was George Gillett’s ownership of Richard Petty Motorsports and then spending the end of 2010 and all of 2011 with the doomed Red Bull squad, Kahne is glad to have found a home with an elite team.

“It’s really been great,” said Kahne. “I was talking to my dad the other night after Talladega and I told him, ‘Man, I couldn’t ask for anything more this season and the opportunities that I’ve had and kind of where we’re at.’

“Yeah, we’d like to be closer to Brad and Jimmie in the points, but we’ve still had a great season,” said Kahne. “… I feel good about it. Two wins, and I feel like we can get another one before the season’s done.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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