Kahne's Korner: The No. 9 Dodge gets a new ... er, old nose for Michigan
The No. 9 Dodge gets a new ... er, old nose for Michigan
By Kasey Kahne
Special to ESPN.com
The biggest difference from coming here as the defending champion of the Michigan race and last year is we came here with some wins already and we knew we were going to be strong last year.
This year we know we can be strong, but we haven't been that fast on some of these type of tracks yet.
We made a couple of changes this week -- we're going with the 2006 Charger nose -- and hope they work. We're doing all we can to try to figure out how to run up front again.
It definitely could be a turning point. You've got a track where I've finished in the top five at least four times, maybe five. That keeps you going. You know you can run well here. There's a lot of room to race, a lot of room to pass, and I think we can have a good shot this weekend.
To run fast here it takes momentum, being able to search around and find places that your car works better than other places.
I've always been able to find speed when you can look around and search for the best spot for your car and just keep working on it, try to make it handle the way that's best. It would be great to run up front and win a race, qualify up front. It would be great. We'll see if it happens and see how the weekend goes.
There are a lot of things going on off the track for a lot of people, like Dale Earnhardt Jr. being named to replace Kyle Busch with Hendrick Motorsports next season. It's just silly season. I guess that's what they call it, and it's about what it is.
This is probably the silliest one yet with all that stuff going on, two really good drivers going to different places. It opens a lot of doors for at least one of them.
I don't think the Hendrick cars ever really had a problem finding sponsors and making their teams go fast with what they have, but signing Junior helps.
It gives them more support and that's a big deal. They're the team for sure.
It's not going to ruin our sport. If anything, it's going to make them a little stronger than they are now. They're already really strong. They're already the team to shoot for.
We're just going to have to step our program up next year and find the resources and the right partners and sponsors to make our deal go.
I know we're fast here or can be fast if things work out the way we want them to. I'm definitely confident. We're ready to win, ready to run up front. Last week we struggled a bit. We qualified well and then struggled in the race. We can do it.
Last year we had a really good car when it went green. We made a couple of small adjustments and that was it. It was very fine tuning, and that's the way you win races. When you start the race on Sunday you're really close and that's how we were last year.