Top 20 Countdown: No. 18 Kasey Kahne
(Getty Images)
2009 statistics
Finish | Poles | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
10 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 14 |
The countdown
No. 20: Martin Truex Jr. | Career stats
No. 19: Brian Vickers | Career stats
No. 18: Kasey Kahne | Career stats
No. 17: Revealed Jan. 14
Editor's note: Yahoo! Sports is counting down the top 20 drivers of the 2010 season. The order was determined by a survey, which asked five NASCAR journalists – Jay Busbee and Jay Hart (Yahoo! Sports); Jenna Fryer (Associated Press); Dustin Long (Landmark Newspapers); and Nate Ryan (USA Today) – to predict the final standings for the 2010 season. The countdown will conclude on Feb. 5 with the unveiling of the No. 1 driver.
2009 finish: 10th
Our 2010 predictions:
• Jay Busbee: Not ranked in top 20
• Jay Hart: 16th
• Jenna Fryer: 13th
• Dustin Long: 20th
• Nate Ryan: 20th
2010 outlook: Kahne is in the final year of his contract with Richard Petty Motorsports, and that's likely to make his 2011 status at least as much a topic of conversation as his 2010 finishes.
After winning six races in a spectacular 2006, Kahne went 0-for-2007, and then fumbled away a Chase berth late in the 2008 regular season. So it's understandable that fans of late have known him more for his cougar-dodging commercials than his driving skills. But two convincing wins in 2009 – at Atlanta in the fall and at Sonoma, a track where he'd never previously finished higher than 23rd – demonstrated that the kid still knows what he's doing behind the wheel.
So with his talent assured, the question for Kahne now switches to his allegiances. He has already openly indicated he'll be looking at other offers this year; just before Homestead, he offered no indication that he'd be giving RPM a hometown discount: "The ups and downs of the team has made it difficult for me to really say, 'Man, I'm going to be here for 10 more years, " Kahne said. "I really don't know what's going to happen."
Kahne's main challenge will be late-season consistency. For the second year in a row, he sputtered to the finish, though at least in 2009 he made the Chase. But he turned in four finishes of 32nd or worse in the 10-race Chase. If he can knock those downward spikes off his record, he's a legit top-five contender. But as his low ranking here shows, he has a lot of proving to do to get to that point.
What you need to know: Kahne is the king of the "if he had better equipment …" club. Fans have long clamored to see what he could do if he was running top-flight hardware. He won two races last year with RPM's Dodges. Will Petty's switch to Ford portend more consistent results for Kahne in 2010? And if so, how hard will that make it for him to switch teams after the season?
