Kahne gets a little ‘Rowdy’

With no Cup or Nationwide race this weekend, the Truck series had all eyes on them. They were at Darlington, The Lady in Black, the track deemed ‘Too Tough To Tame’. Can anyone tame the so-called ‘Beast’ that is Darlington Raceway? At 19 years old, Cole Whitt earned his first career Truck pole, knocking Cup driver Kasey Kahne to 2^nd. Cole would lead the first 22 laps, before being over taken by the veteran. I don’t know if you would call Kasey Kahne a veteran in the Truck series. Before last night’s race, Kasey had made only three starts: twice in 2004 and once last year at Pocono. Then again, Kasey did have two wins and a second-place finish in the series before last night. As I sit here and write this, I kinda feeling like a nerd in my new ‘glasses’.

Anyway, in the true spirit of Darlington, you gotta have some wrecks. 10 to be exact. The most notable, at least the one I remember the most, was the one that happened on the front stretch. Ricky Carmichael gets lose and spins around, hitting the wall. Here’s where it gets interesting. Johanna Long, the 18-year-old, gets a tire cut down from another truck. She come down the front stretch. Ricky is just trying to get out of everybody’s way. BAM! Johanna hits Ricky. Big old pile-up. Red flags the race because there was no room for the trucks to go around the track with out running over a piece of debris.

Can you say D-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N? What else would you call Kasey Kahne’s performance last night? Leading 95 of 147 laps, staying in the top-5 ALL night. That’s what I would call it, but then again I have been a Kasey Kahne fan for almost 5 years, so I just could be impartial to the guy. This was Kasey’s second race with Kyle Busch Motorsports (and hopefully not the last! I’m talking to you Kyle!), making his average start for KBM at 1.5 and his average finish with the team the same. His average finish in the series all together is slightly better, at 1.25. Thank you Ray Dunlap for saying that. With the win, Kasey becomes the ONLY driver to win 3 races in his first 4 starts in any top series. I’d say that is pretty damn good. That brings his overall NASCAR wins (Cup, NNS, and Trucks) to 21.

As a die-hard Kasey Kahne fan, I was THRILLED that Kasey won. Ecstatic! I haven’t seen him race a race like that in years. And when he did his post-race interview, I haven’t seen him THAT happy in a long time. Seeing him that happy, made me happy. You don’t feel happy unless your driver is happy, so lately, it’s been not so good for this girl.

What did the fans think of the race?

@Speeds_promdate: outstanding. Showed that anyone was capable of defeating the Lady in Black. All the drivers really pulled their best and some got close, but some failed. As for Kahne, we won and just did an outstanding job. Great truck race

@cruetten: pretty exciting

@TLaut23: not sure I’d call it a race. Not much racing went on. Mostly just crashing :P

@Matt_Kacar: pretty good race, glad Kasey won. Showed that now only [can] Kyle Busch win in his truck

@KK_KFfan4: I loved the truck race

@AngieLuvsMusic: I was thrilled to see Kasey win, especially at the track where he got his first truck win in 2004

@denver2u: a great night for Kasey and all us true fans. He’s got talent, is underrated, but with the right equip[ment], can kick serious butt. Aren’t all us KK fans still smiling today? Absolutely…now he needs a Cup win

@18Winning: I thought it was a good race, was glad Kasey won, but a lot of the inexperienced drivers crashing slowed the flow a bit

As you can probably tell, most people thought that race was good and was glad to see Kasey Kahne in victory lane. The question is now, is this the beginning of a Kahne comeback? This will be sort of answered next time. I will be introducing a round table discussion with a few of my fellow NASCAR bloggers. Stay tuned. You won’t be disappointed.