Kasey Kahne, driver of the Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, crashed Wednesday during practice for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Kahne will go to a back-up car for the Thursday Twin Duels which will set the starting grid for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
“They (HMS) have lots of cars and they do a nice job preparing,” the newest HMS driver said. “So our back-up car is just as good. The problem is that we don’t have another one after that. So we’ll have to start figuring that out. Maybe I’ll have to go borrow someone’s.”
Kahne’s slide through the grass came on a day when some teams chose to limit the amount of time they spend on the track in order to avoid possibly damaging their Dayton 500 cars.
Kahne was hired to drive for HMS more than a year ago but spent 2011 driving a Toyota for Red Bull Racing while he waited for Mark Martin to exit the No. 5 HMS Chevrolet.
“Actually, our back-up car is just as good,” said Kahne, “but the problem is we still have the (Qualifying Duels) 150’s and a couple more practices. We haven’t gotten off to a real good start yet. We might need to bring more cars down at this rate.”
Kahne, who underwent successful outpatient knee surgery earlier in the month, finished 13th of the 25 in Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway, his first race for his new team.
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