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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: RPM Flexes Surprising Muscle
Richard Petty Motorsports had three of the top six finishers at Atlanta...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted March 07, 2010   Hampton, GA
Kurt Busch, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Dodge, races Kasey Kahne, driver of the #9 Budweiser Ford, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

The fact that one powerful NASCAR Sprint Cup team led the most laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday and placed three of its cars in the top six finishers of the Kobalt Tools 500 was no surprise at all.

RESULTS: KOBALT TOOLS 500

The fact that the team who accomplished those results was Richard Petty Motorsports was downright stunning. Not Hendrick Motorsports, not Richard Childress Racing, not Joe Gibbs Racing, not Roush Fenway Racing.

Richard Petty Motorsports, the team that has had three ownership buyouts/mergers/realignments since mid-2007. The team that is in a new shop, with a new manufacturer and a bunch of new employees. Yes, that Richard Petty Motorsports.

And what a day it was for the team. Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth and Juan Pablo Montoya were the top three finishers at AMS, but right behind them came the RPM Ford Fusions of Kasey Kahne, Paul Menard and A.J. Allmendinger.

It was the team's best result since the 2009 Daytona 500, and an extremely impressive performance given that RPM is just four races into its partnership with Ford and its relocation from Statesville, N.C., to new shops in Concord, N.C., adjacent to the Roush Fenway Racing operations.

Kahne had the dominant car on the day at Atlanta, leading 143 of 342 laps, but at the end, his car got tight and he couldn't hang on. The event distance was scheduled for 325 laps, but a late-race airborne crash with Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards (see related story) ended in two attempts at a green-white-checkered finish. On the first one, Kahne spun his tires and went nowhere fast.

On the second one, Kahne lined up on the outside of Row 2, behind Montoya. This time, it was Montoya who had the bad start, as he boxed Kahne in, while Busch ran off to victory. “Juan spun them there, and I was trying to push him,” Kahne said. “And we were sideways, and it was just a mess. I had a good time, I wish we would have ran better, I wish we would have won the race. But we had a good car and we came close.”

While Kahne was disappointed at not winning, he was encouraged by the performance of his No. 9 Ford. “We just got tight, so I couldn't run through the corners as fast as I needed to,” said Kahne. “We didn't quite stay up with it. We were dominant at times, but the Budweiser Ford was good. We had a good day.”

Ditto for Allmendinger, the former open-wheel racer from Northern California. “It's a big deal for so many reasons,” said Allmendinger. “We haven't started the season very well. … My pit crew, everybody on my Insignia/Best Buy Ford was great. Mike Shiplett (crew chief), just everybody working together. We really focused on changing the race car and what we needed here. And it was a big deal.”

Allmendinger said the strong run could pave the way for much more out of the team. “It seems like in this sport, all it takes is one good run. If you have one good run, you have a couple of them, and then you start having five and 10 of them.”

Perhaps most surprising of all was fifth-place finisher Paul Menard, who earned his first top-five finish at a non-restrictor plate track and jumped all the way to ninth in points in the process.

"These guys work their tails off all during the offseason, and it was a lot of fun out there today," said Menard. "All of our cars were fast this weekend. We got three of the top six finishers, so I think Richard Petty Motorsports is back.”

RESULTS: KOBALT TOOLS 500

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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