Keeping Kahne happy priority No. 1 for RPM

Kasey Kahne rolled into Pocono Raceway a year ago still riding the high from consecutive wins at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The momentum had energized his race team and put Kahne back into championship contention.

The No. 9 team parlayed its confidence into a dominating Pocono run – Kahne led a race-high 69 laps en route to his second points victory in three races – that pushed him up three spots in the standings to ninth. A second-place finish the next weekend at Michigan gained him another two spots in the standings, and Kahne seemed to be headed towards a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

Except for after that it slowly started to fall off the rails.

A full year later, Kahne's team is only now beginning to get back on track. Whether or not it's enough to keep him happy at Richard Petty Motorsports remains to be seen.

But this much is clear: Just a month ago, Kahne was miserable and didn't care who knew it. As his name began popping up for potential rides, he was given an opportunity to put the whispers to rest. Instead, he raised eyebrows everywhere with a candid assessment of his race team.

Quite simply, his team had shown no improvement as the competition ran laps around him in development, technology and results. Most frustrating was that rival Kurt Busch had gotten Dodge's new R6P8 engine on track last October and the entire Penske Racing organization has been using it in 2009.

Kahne wanted the new motor, too, and he wanted to know why RPM was so slow in getting it into his car.

Although he's got another year left on his contract, and in his heart he wants to honor it and continue working with crew chief Kenny Francis, he left the door open for a departure if things don't change at RPM.

"I think a lot of people were surprised I was so outspoken," the low-key Kahne admitted. "But what am I supposed to do? I want to be competitive and I want to win races, and in my opinion we were no better than we were a year ago. We were just the same, and that's not going to get it done."

It's hard to say whether Kahne's criticism lit a spark at RPM, but after a five-week slump Kahne and the No. 9 team head back to Pocono on an upswing. After leading just one lap all season, he charged to the front at Darlington to lead 45 laps. He was right on Kyle Busch's bumper when rain brought out the final caution of the Coca-Cola 600, and after pitting with Busch, wound up sixth when the race was called.

He was sixth last week at Dover, giving him consecutive top-10 finishes for the first time since early March.

Oh, by the way, he had the new Dodge motor last week, as well.

"Our motor shop has really worked hard to get this thing out there; they've accelerated their schedule and went above and beyond to get us a motor to try out, and I think it was definitely better, for sure," Francis said after last Sunday's race.

"Our old engine, the R5, was good for a long time. But it just got behind the times and all these other motor shops and car companies came out with new stuff."

But the new engine had a short life for Kahne, who will most likely have the R5 again this weekend at Pocono. Francis was hopeful all four RPM entries will have the new motor next weekend at Michigan.

"We'd sure love to keep running it, but you've got to look at the logistical side of it," Francis said.

This is a critical point of the season for Kahne, who has moved up to 14th in the standings and is just 66 points out of Chase contention. With 13 races to go until the Chase begins, RPM has to make enough gains to help Kahne earn one of the 12 title-contending berths. If not, he'll be locked out of the Chase for a fourth consecutive year.

That's hardly the results Kahne counted on when he wiggled free from a Ford developmental deal to drive one of Ray Evernham's Dodges. But so much has changed since 2004, when Kahne became the Cup Series' next big thing. Although he won six races and finished eighth in 2006, his only year in the Chase, the entire landscape surrounding him is different.

Evernham lost focus midway through 2006, and Kahne says the team began to suffer. George Gillett Jr. bought majority interest in the team, and then Evernham stepped away completely. Then came January's offseason merger with Petty Enterprises, Chrysler's bankruptcy filing last month and uncertainty surrounding RPM's manufacturer deal.

Many believe RPM will be in Toyotas next season, but Kahne isn't convinced. He figures the organization wouldn't waste any money developing a new engine if it wasn't committed to using it long-term.

But the slow pace is quizzical. Since Kahne is the only serious title contender under the RPM banner, one would think they'd be pulling out all the stops to give him a legitimate shot.

Then there's Richard Petty's recent admission that support from Dodge has been put on hold as Chrysler tries to emerge from Chapter 11.

So, where does that leave Kahne?

He's the defending race winner at Pocono, where he ran really well last year. And he's very good at capitalizing on momentum, which he's had for almost a month now.

"It's good for a driver, good for the team, and good for the people back in the shop," he said. "You could lose 50 straight races and win one, and it's like you forget about all that stuff. I think winning races and running up front is as much of a confidence and momentum builder that you can have in racing."

Still, the unsteadiness of the Dodge contract and the slow RPM developmental pace has him in a precarious position. Race car drivers are pretty easy to please: Give them a fast car, and everything else is fine. But if Kahne doesn't have a fast car the next 13 weeks, he's going to be far from fine.