Racing Newsmaker: Kasey Kahne

Kasey Kahne barely missed making the final cut for the Chase for the Championship last year, so most expected him to be even better this year in his second full-time season in the Nextel Cup Series. And while he's won a race, he's lacked the consistency of a year ago, dropping him from contention.

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The 25-year-old driver talked about this season and what he expects in the future at Evernham Motorsports during a weekly telephone conference call hosted by NASCAR. Here are excerpts from that conversation:

Question: You're basically out of contention to make the Chase for the Championship, while Jeremy Mayfield is solidly in the field. Would you cover his back in the next three races to make sure he makes the final cut?

Kahne: Well, it depends what it was. If it came down to it and I was battling for a position and needed to hang on to that position to, you know, help Jeremy get in the Chase, I mean, yeah, I'm going to drive as hard as I can to, you know, make sure the guy doesn't get by me. But there would never be any extra contact or anything like that to prevent that. Your points are what you got. You worked for it all year long. You know, you can't mess with other people because of that. You can race hard, but there's no reason to mess around and mess with other people's chance at the points. It's a full-year deal. It's a 26-race deal to get in, it's not one race.

Question: Are you surprised you're not in contention for the Chase for the Championship?

Kahne: Yeah, I'm surprised. I thought we definitely would be right in the middle of it going for it early in the year. But it's just the way our year's went, some of the things that have went on, some of the crashes I did at the start of the year, just things that have gone on throughout the year. It's a competitive series. It's a tough series. You need things to go right. And we've had too many errors, too many mistakes, and are not going to make the Chase. But definitely in earlier in the year, I would have definitely thought we would be a lot closer than we are.

Question: Other than the Nextel Cup Series, what's been your biggest challenge in racing?

Kahne: Probably the ups and downs of NASCAR, the ups and downs of racing in general. You know, one week things will be great, and you'll go into the next week expecting things to be great and something happens. I mean, it's tough to handle sometimes, especially when it happens a couple times in a row, and you just don't know what to think. Those are definitely the toughest times for me, when things don't go the way that I want. And in racing, very seldom do they go the way you want. So that's something that you have to really work on, on getting through, when they're not going the way you want them to.

Question: What are some things about your job as a driver that fans may not understand?

Kahne: Hospitalities -- getting up in the morning when you're at the racetrack, doing hospitalities and meet-and-greets for the different sponsors that are at that race. You know, you go straight from that to the driver's meeting, straight from that, try to get some lunch, and then straight out to driver introductions. And your whole morning is taken up by fans, and by sponsors and commitments. And that's something I think a lot of people don't recognize. I used to have people say, "Oh, you got it made racing, being a race car driver." And I think I have it made. I think it's the greatest thing I could ever do. But at the same time they don't think you do anything but race. And there's so much more when you get into the Nextel Cup Series weekly. There's weeks when I'll go three weeks in a row without one single day off, and that's something that a guy working a normal job doesn't have. I mean, it's up and down. Then a week you'll have three days off and really enjoy that week. So there's just a lot more out there than what the regular person or the regular fan sees.

Question: Do you enjoy the hot-tempered racing like we'll see Saturday night at Bristol?

Kahne: I actually really enjoy it. Last year when the points were a lot closer, I was a little nervous going into this race because you can lose a lot, you know, at Bristol or you can gain a lot. And I was nervous. But this year, without having close points at all, it's just another race, and it's a great racetrack. It's fun to go to twice a year, beat-and-bang a little bit, on and off the throttle, steering. It's non-stop for 500 miles. Not 500 miles, that would be forever. 500 laps, I think it is (laughter).

Question: What's the biggest difference in your learning curve this year and what you went through last year as a rookie?

Kahne: Well, last year was learning a lot about the car, the Cup car and how to drive it -- the things that come along with it, with the fans and the media. This year has been probably all of that, plus not running as well as what we want to run, and that's been a huge learning curve to get through those times and still go to the next race and feeling like we're confident enough that we can win there. The biggest thing is to keep your confidence up even when you're not running good. I feel like we're good to go right now. We finished 29th this weekend. I feel like we can go and win Bristol. We've just got to keep doing what we're doing and, hopefully, soon we'll get in that -- start running that top 10 each week.

Question: What have you learned this year?

Kahne: I've learned a ton, just in a ton of different situations you get in throughout a race or during the race week. I learned a lot about going through a lawsuit. I learned a lot about running my sprint car team. There's so many things I learned this year as a driver, as a person. I can carry that stuff with me for a long time and keep making me a better race car driver.

Question: What are your goals for the rest of the season?

Kahne: Win races. That's really all I want to do is win races. If we can win races, we'll have good race cars and be ready for next year, we'll be ready to go at the start of the next season. If we can't win races, if we can't get up front, then we're going to have to really figure some things out over the winter. But the guys are working really hard. If we can finish off this season strong with top fives and some victories, we'll definitely be looking at getting in that Chase next year, rather than being on the outside looking in.