Motorsports

Kahne winner at last

The second-year Nextel Cup driver breaks through at Richmond after six runnerup finishes on the circuit.

RICHMOND, Va. - Kasey Kahne had been so close so many times in his first 46 races in NASCAR's premier series, it was starting to hurt.

But the 25-year-old outran another brush with agony by beating Tony Stewart on two restarts in the last 14 laps Saturday night, and put the domination of Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports to rest for a night.

After six runnerup finishes, Kahne finally broke through, winning the Chevy American Revolution 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

"Tonight's just the night," said Kahne, also a six-time Nextel Cup pole-sitter, including Saturday. "We've come so close and always thought when it comes the time, we're going to win a race."

Even better was how he did it.

Kahne's crew gave him a lot of help, getting his Dodge off pit road just ahead of Stewart with about 67 laps to go. Then the Evernham Motorsports driver stayed there on restarts with 61, 43, 14 and seven laps remaining.

On the first lap after the final restart, Stewart pulled partway alongside Kahne on the restart. But a lap later Kahne cleared him and left Stewart to battle Ryan Newman for second in the last of the 400 laps on the 0.75-mile oval.

"To beat Tony Stewart just means a lot because of how good he is," said Kahne, who won by 1.67 seconds. "It's just awesome to beat that good of a driver."

Victory came in his 47th career Nextel Cup race, and gave Dodge its first victory in a Charger since Neil Bonnett in 1977 in California.

"This is a big weight off all of our shoulders," crew chief Tommy Baldwin said. "Now we can ease up on the tension and really go racing."

Kahne's big night kept his recent turnaround going. He started the night 19th in points, but coming off a pole position and third-place run at Darlington and two poles this weekend, including the Busch Series.

"It's been coming for a while," said Kahne, a second-year Cup driver.

He also is the first driver to win from the pole at Richmond since Bill Elliott, Kahne's predecessor at Evernham, did it in March 1992.

Stewart, who raced against Kahne in open-wheel series before both came to NASCAR, was as happy as seemed possible after coming up short.

"The kid has done an awesome job for two years now. He just needed a perfect night and tonight's that night," Stewart said. "If we were going to run second to anybody, ... that's the guy to run second to."

Stewart's Chevrolet was followed by the Dodge of Newman and the Chevrolets of Hendrick driver Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick.

The night was tough on the points leaders, with leader Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon having miserable nights and Roush's Kurt Busch having to rally to finish 17th.

Greg Biffle finished sixth and jumped from third to second in points, just 41 behind Johnson. Gordon is third, 124 points behind, and Elliott Sadler, who ran seventh, passed Busch for fourth, 149 points back.

Roush teams won five of the first 10 races of the year and the Hendrick drivers won four, but none threatened in this race.

Johnson spun and hit the wall on Lap 81, then hit it again when his steering failed as he was trying to hustle the car to pit road. He took his car to the garage, finishing 40th.

Gordon hit the wall when Bobby Labonte caused Rusty Wallace to spin on Lap 165, and the four-time champion went several laps down on pit road.

"It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life," said Gordon, who wound up 39th. "A car spun in front of me, I saw smoke and I slowed down, decided to take it a little high and just ran straight into the wall."

Busch was second after pit stops on Lap 242, but a lap before the restart he headed for pit road after telling his crew he'd heard a bad noise. Busch dropped two laps behind while his team investigated.

[Last modified May 15, 2005, 01:22:06]