Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 5 Mountain Dew Chevrolet, hasn’t had a great start to the 2016 season as his highest finishing race thus far was an eighth place finish at Texas Motor Speedway.
However, signs that he could get on the right track and possibly qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup are in full force based on how Richmond went.
From the drop of the green flag, Kahne steadily ran in the top-10 and was able to he break into the top-five as the race was reaching its closing laps, finishing fourth. He hopes he can carry this momentum into Talladega Superspeedway.
“Yeah, it definitely is,” Kahne said. ” The Mountain Dew Chevrolet was great the whole race. The pit stops were awesome and just the communication with Keith (Rodden, crew chief) and the team all weekend long; same as last week and same as the weekend before in Texas. It’s been solid and we’re heading in the right direction. It’s been really nice. We got a good restart there at the end. I had pretty good starts all day. I screwed one up and other than that, we had good restarts. It feels good.”
A continued stretch of success would be huge for Kahne as last season, he was more times than not the lowest finishing Hendrick Motorsports car en route to failing to qualify for the Chase and finished 18th in points. On Sunday, though, he was the highest finisher of his teammates, a trend that he hopes continues.
