Kasey Kahne races his way to his first victory of the season and secures his place in the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
With his Chase hopes hanging on a win, Sprint Cup Series driver Kasey Kahne rang the bell for Hendrick Motorsports and his No. 5 team with a victory in the Oral-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night.
After losing ground on a late caution that set up two green-white-checkered finishes, Kahne threaded the needle between the leader, Matt Kenseth and a hard-charging Denny Hamlin to take a thrilling win.
Coming to the end of the race, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr tangled. bringing out a caution just before the white flag came out for the leader, Kasey Kahne – setting up the next two restarts and extending the race by ten laps.
The first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish was short-lived with Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano wrecking each other trying to pass Paul Menard on the restart.
Kenseth was the leader for the next restart with Kahne in second – both drivers without wins at that moment – and Hamlin charging hard on the high side from third. Making an aggressive move, Kahne held off Hamlin by going three-wide through the middle with Kenseth on the low side. The No. 5 car of Kahne emerged as the leader to take the checkered flag by 0.574 seconds.
Kahne’s first win of the season clinches him a spot in the Chase – as long as he attempts to qualify next week at Richmond – making him the 13th different driver to reach Victory Lane this season. This is his 17th series career win and his third win at Atlanta.
Settling for second-place, Kenseth clinches his Chase berth, based on his points position. Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards round out the top-five finishers.
Danica Patrick earned a career-best sixth-place finish, which is also the highest finish by a female at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The record was held by Janet Guthrie’s tenth-place finish in March of 1978.
Following Patrick to the finish line were Ryan Newman, Rookie of the Year contender Kyle Larson, and Aric Almirola with Greg Biffle rounding out the top-ten.
The points leader, Jeff Gordon finished in 17th-place and now has a 21-point advantage over his teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr, who finished in 11th-place.
There were ten cautions for 56 laps, with 21 lead changes among six drivers.
Next up for the Sprint Cup Series is the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday, September 6th with a green flag at 7:50 pm ET. Television coverage by ESPN on ABC begins at 7 pm ET with their pre-race show.