Finishing a season-worst 39th on Monday at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway was part of a bad day for Kasey Kahne, who dropped from third to fourth in the Nextel Cup standings.
But it could have been much worse after he was involved in a frightening, 13-car wreck. Early reports had Kahne heading to a hospital with internal injuries after the accident on lap 9.
“I got hit and it knocked the wind out of me, and I was just sitting there and I just asked them to give me a minute,” Kahne said Tuesday on a national teleconference. “I put the window net down and everything and said, ‘Hey, just give me a minute.’ They thought that something was wrong because I asked for that minute, and I was just trying to catch my breath and get out of the car.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I’ve got the wind knocked out of me plenty of times, and that was it.”
NASCAR is North America’s biggest and most popular racing series, but it lacks its own rescue teams like open wheel’s Champ Car World Series and Indy Racing League.
“Other series have that, but I think these guys were doing a fine job,” Kahne said of speedway rescue crews. “I just didn’t need to go, and they thought that I did. If they had their own medical team, they may understand us a little better, but they may not. They may still have wanted to take me to the hospital.”
Willing and able
Kahne complained of soreness in his left hip, elbow and shoulder, but said he will compete Saturday at Richmond (Va.) International Speedway. Kahne, 26, captured his first career win at that race a year ago and also won the pole.
He is looking for his third win of the season and seventh top-10 finish going into the 10th race of the season.
“We’ve been doing everything really well, communicating really well and had some great finishes,” Kahne said. “We had two races that haven’t been our fault, things have happened, and without those two races we’d be right in the middle of leading the points.”
Plate problems
Joe Garone, crew chief for Denver-based Furniture Row Racing and driver Kenny Wallace, went into Talladega expecting the worst. And that’s just what his team got.
Wallace qualified last among 49 drivers attempting to make the 43-car field.
Garone said a rookie team – especially one not based in the Southeast – is bound to struggle at restrictor-plate races, but that its poor “plate” showing is not a sign of things to come.
To the contrary, the team expects to qualify in the top half this weekend at Richmond, where Furniture Row was 15th quickest in testing a couple of weeks ago.
Footnotes
Saturday will be the 100th Cup race at Richmond, which is sold out for the 29th consecutive time. … Teams began a two-day test Tuesday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. The event was the fourth of six NASCAR-hosted test sessions this season and the only opportunity to practice at the 1.5-mile tri-oval outside of race weekends.
Mike Chambers can be reached at 303-820-5453 or mchambers@denverpost.com.
