Kahne solves the mystery of the COT

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - If you listened to the talk in the garage this weekend, it should have been the worst race of the year.

The cars were too evenly matched, the track too old and worn out to provide passing zones and the race was too long, as driver after driver rattled off reasons why the Pocono 500 on Sunday was going to be a flop.

“It’s going to be extremely hard to pass,” said Jeff Gordon prior to the race. “You have to have a multiple-groove racetrack with this car, and in the past, Pocono has not been a multi-groove racetrack.”

Gordon’s concerns were echoed throughout the weekend by other drivers. But someone must have forgotten to tell Kasey Kahne, because once the green flag flew, Kahne did more than pass cars.

He made it look downright easy.

Kahne started on the pole, but dropped back to 38th after a pit mistake left the No. 9 missing lug nuts on the left-front wheel. But instead of using his misfortune as an excuse, Kahne disproved all of the pre-race myths about Pocono and the Car of Tomorrow by needing fewer than 60 laps to move back into the top-five.

“I could get under cars off turn one, and beat them into the tunnel turn,” said Kahne, “and then I could pull under them into turn three and get on the old line and pass them — our Budwesier Dodge was just that good. I could go anywhere, and when you can go anywhere, you can go where the car in front of you isn’t — that made it a lot easier than I expected.”

Kahne was not the only driver putting on a good show, either. We saw two and three-wide racing back in the pack most of the day, including a great battle in the closing laps between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton.

So why were there so many concerns before the race?

For most drivers, those extraneous factors — things like tires, the Car of Tomorrow, or the track itself — have become the popular excuse for a struggling team.

If a car is not performing well, the blame lies everywhere but back at the shop or worse yet — behind the wheel.

Kahne, on the other hand, readily acknowledged his early season problems in the COT had little to do with equipment, and much more to do with his mindset on race day.

“We’ve had good cars all year,” Kahne said. “I realized that I think I was leaving a little bit out there…and maybe wasn’t communicating quite as well as I have in the past. Since then, I’ve done a better job, and it’s just kind of like everything is clicking at the same time.”

Kahne’s attitude is certain to become more pervasive. And as teams shift their focus from complaining about the COT to figuring out how to make it race well, the end result will be better action on the track.

Get up to speed on the latest in NASCAR — listen to Wilson’s Race Report every weeknight at 8:20 on 93.1 WPOC.

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