Kasey Kahne credits Keith Rodden with early season success
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Kasey Kahne has little hesitation when asked what's sparked his team's improved pace in 2015.
"(Crew chief) Keith Rodden and just how he's kind of prepared the cars, got the cars back to where they need to be ... we're excited to go back to the race track," Kahne told Yahoo Sports on Thursday during a promotional appearance.
"I think Keith has so much to do with why our performance is better this year."
Rodden, a former lead engineer on the No. 5 car, returned to the team in 2015 to replace Kahne's longtime crew chief Kenny Francis atop the pit box. Rodden, who had also worked with Kahne before the two joined Hendrick, left the team before the 2014 season and became the crew chief for Jamie McMurray.
In 2013, Kahne won two races, finished 12th in the points standings and had an average starting position of 11.6. Last season, Kahne's first win came at Atlanta in August and snuck him into the Chase. However, he finished 15th in points and his average start dropped all the way to 17.2.
With Rodden back at Hendrick Motorsports, Kahne is the top-ranked Hendrick driver in the standings through six races and is fifth in points. His average start is back to just outside the top 10 and his average finish of 12.0, if it holds up through 30 more arduous races, would be the best of his career.
Kahne said he had a feeling his cars would be faster in 2015 in the offseason but wasn't sure until he got to Las Vegas.
"We had a great offseason as far as a team, all of us together. But until I got to Las Vegas, not real sure," Kahne said. "And then in Vegas we were easily the second-best car and from that point on I knew that we’ll have a really strong season."
It was quite a contrast from a year ago.
"I was scared in January of last year when we tested at Nashville and were four tenths off," Kahne said. "And then we went to the first track and were four tenths off and everything made sense. That was our speed and that was what we were bringing to the track and it was — I knew it right away and we never really got rid of that until later in the season. We got better, but we still didn’t get where we needed to be."
Though the Vegas race is not one of Kahne's two top-10 finishes in 2015. He ran up front for most of the race until he was involved in an incident with Carl Edwards on lap 194. Edwards ran out of real estate and shoved Kahne into the wall off turn four. Kahne then sent Edwards spinning the next lap.
Kahne battled back to finish 17th, his worst finish of the season.
The increased speed also brings renewed optimism. As the summer races ticked off last year, Kahne's chances of making the Chase started to teeter before that Atlanta win. Now, Kahne's confident a win isn't too far away.
"I know it’s right there," he said. "I know that we’re close and I’ve been looking forward to Texas for two weeks so maybe it will be this weekend. We’re definitely getting closer each week and we feel better about what we're bringing to the track."
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
