He’s been in a slump since winning 6 races in 2006, had only 1 top five and 8 top ten’s in 2007, and has managed only 5 top ten’s so far in 2008. But on Saturday night, Kasey Kahne claimed Victory and the $1 Million first place prize.
Kahne did not qualify for the All Star race, and finished 5th in the Sprint Showdown, also eliminating him from the Sprint All Star Race. But the Fans voted overwhelmingly to put him in the last starting place. Working his way through the field he continued to improve and finished 13th in the first segment. The second segment would move him up again to 8th place, while the third segment would move him to 7th. The Budweiser #9 team gambled and chose not to change tires on the last pit stop, which put Kahne starting second for the final 25 lap segment behind Jimmie Johnson. After the restart, Denny Hamlin jumped out front, but Kahne, after passing Johnson took the lead on lap 84 when Hamlin suffered engine failure.
The Sprint All Star race was a non points race and although the winner collected a cool $1Million, the rest of the field received far less. But even for those who did not fare well, this was a great testing session for teams preparing for Memorial Day weekend and the Coca Cola 600, also at Lowes Motor Speedway. The 600 will be Sunday May 25th and will be televised on Fox at 5PM (ET).
Local Racing:
FRIDAY: Mother Nature won all the races Friday and both Crossville Raceway and Wartburg Speedway were forced to cancel.
SATURDAY: Spring City Raceway winners: LLM-Jeff Adkisson, Mod Street-Marty Goodman, Super Street-Sam Johnson, Street Stock-Jerry Spence, Super Mini-Darren Goins, FWD-Spunky Brown
The Mountain Raceway Park winners: SLM-Bobby Giffin, Sportsman- Jake Teague, Fastrak Crates-Steve Jones, Mini-Rocky McNabb, Pure Mini-Scott Webb, Street Stock-James Price, Mod Mini-Kendall White.
411 Motor Speedway winners: LM-Jason Cardwell, Mod Street-Robbie Comer, Street Stock-Bryan McDaniel, Mod Mini-Terry Poore, Pure Mini- JD Rector of Crossville
Tazwell Speedway winners: LM-Travis Fultz, Fastrak Crates winner-Brad Hall, Mod Street- Allen Holt, Pure Street-Jordon Horton, 4cylinder- Chuck McMahan
Cleveland Speedway winners: Southern All Stars SLM- Jimmie Owens, LLM-Craig Burrows, Hobby-Tanner Works, B Hobby- Patrick Harvey, Pony-Jim Elliott, Front Runner- Kenny Kizzar.
Volunteer Speedway announced that they will be closed until May 31 when they will run a $3K SLM race and then close again until June 21.
