Editor’s note: This is the 15th in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.
CONCORD, N.C. – Winning the Brickyard 400, one of NASCAR’s crown jewel races, is an experience that should be unforgettable.
For Kasey Kahne, it’s one that he struggles to remember at all.
The dehydration problems that forced Kahne to prematurely end his 2018 season and led to his subsequent retirement from Cup Series competition were already plaguing him by the summer of 2017. On a brutally hot July day in Indianapolis and in an event prolonged by rain, 14 cautions, three red flags and two overtime restart attempts, the Brickyard 400, which took over six hours to complete, became a war of attrition.
Kahne found a way to win that war. Just don’t ask him about the path to victory.
“I kind of somewhat blacked out,” Kahne explained in phone interview last week. “I’ve seen pictures of victory lane and stuff like that, so, I have that in my mind. But overall, I don’t remember anything much of that race.”
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| RACE FACTS | |
|---|---|
| Date: | July 23, 2017 |
| Venue: | Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Brickyard 400) |
| Winner: | Kasey Kahne |
| Hendrick Motorsports win: | No. 249 |
| Laps led by winner: | 12 |
| Starting position of winner: | 19th |
| Top 10: | 1. Kasey Kahne; 2. Brad Keselowski; 3. Ryan Newman; 4. Joey Logano; 5. Matt Kenseth; 6. Kevin Harvick; 7. Daniel Suarez; 8. Matt DiBenedetto; 9. Chris Buescher; 10. AJ Allmendinger |
| Did you know? | The event’s 14 cautions and 55 caution laps still stand as Brickyard 400 records. With an average speed of 114.384 miles per hour, it was also the slowest Brickyard 400 ever. |
Kahne went on to say that it wasn’t until he’d received IVs and was back in the motorhome lot with his father and friends that he began to realize the weight of what he’d just accomplished. And in that moment, even if it was a little late, he was happy.
“It was one that I really wanted over the years. It was cool to finally win one,” Kahne said.
And he’d been really close before.
In 2004 and 2005, his first two seasons as a NASCAR Cup Series competitor, he’d finished fourth and second. By the time he hung it up the week before the 2018 Brickyard 400, he’d accumulated seven top-10 finishes in 14 career starts and among tracks he made more than one start at, Kahne’s average finish of 13.6 at Indianapolis is his best.
For a guy who cut his teeth running open wheel sprint cars, maybe an immediate affinity for racing at Indy didn’t make much sense. But he quickly found a knack and big, flat tracks, as also proven by a pair of career wins at Pocono.
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“I’m not really sure (why) that worked so well,” Kahne said. “It made sense to me, the front grip compared to the rear grip. I could turn off of the front but still have enough turn in the rear.”
The 2017 Brickyard wasn’t the first crown jewel event Kahne had won. He remains one of only eight drivers with three or more Coca-Cola 600 victories, standing alongside Darrell Waltrip (five), Jimmie Johnson (four), Buddy Baker, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon (three each).
The third of those wins came in 2012, his first at Hendrick Motorsports, en route to a career-best, fourth-place showing in points. But by 2017, those days seemed long gone. From 2013-2016, Kahne finished 12th, 15th, 18th and 17th in the standings and entering the 2017 Brickyard 400, he was on a 102-race winless streak.
The future of Hendrick Motorsports was arriving by that weekend. On Thursday, prior to Sunday’s race, Alex Bowman was announced as the full-time replacement for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had already announced his retirement as of the end of 2017. On Saturday, William Byron went to victory lane in the Xfinity Series race. Just a couple weeks later, he’d be announced as Kahne’s replacement with Kahne set to be released at season’s end.
Though Kahne may not have known what was to come, he felt the urgency of the moment with each passing week.
“It had been time to win for a while, we just weren’t able to put it all together it seemed like from different aspects,” Kahne said. “Overall, we just didn’t perform as you’d want.”
That weekend, Kahne showed speed in spurts. He was fourth in first practice, ninth in second practice but mustered just a 19th-place qualifying effort. Throughout stage one and two, he was mired in the teens and hadn’t been a threat at the front.
That all changed however, as it often does at Indianapolis, thanks to fuel strategy. Well, that and a crash at the front of the field.
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Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch had been the dominant cars with Busch leading 87 laps. However, on a restart with 49 laps to go, Truex got loose on the bottom lane entering turn one, spun and collected Busch, sending both cars careening into the outside wall. Both were done for the day.
The remaining top 15, including Kahne, stayed out under caution with Kahne restarting 14th. Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano were the first to pit on what many thought would be the last fuel cycle, coming in with 30 laps to go. That prompted most of the rest of the field began to follow suit, including leader Matt Kenseth a couple of laps later.
However, a few cars – most notably Trevor Bayne, Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Kahne – chose to roll the dice and stay out, forfeiting lap time in hopes of a caution flag to flip the field. Just as Kahne had given up the fight, coming into pit with 11 to go, a massive crash erupted on the front stretch involving Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch and Erik Jones with a red flag necessitated for track cleanup.
Kahne had just completed his service as the caution was flying and remained on the lead lap. So, when the race went green again, he had cycled all the way to the lead as the rest of the field came to pit.
However, the calamity was just beginning. Kahne held the lead upon the ensuing restart but the race quickly went back under caution as Kyle Larson got into the wall with six to go.
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The green flag waved again with two to go and Keselowski got a run to Kahne’s outside with Johnson taking the bottom while smoking down the backstretch with a mechanical issue. The trio was three wide getting into turn three, but Johnson lost grip in the bottom lane, spinning and smacking the wall to bring out another caution. Kahne was still scored as the leader.
The first overtime restart didn’t even make it to turn one. Kahne was the control car and lagged a bit in the restart zone but Keselowski, who was restarting on the inside, smashed the gas then let off, causing a stackup that sent Bayne spinning from row two. Several cars were collected and another red flag was displayed.
Keselowski was shown as the leader as he was ahead at the first scoring loop. That was much to the chagrin of Kahne, who expressed his belief that Keselowski had jumped the restart during an in-race TV interview.
Regardless, with daylight fading fast, Kahne knew he’d likely only have one more shot.
While so many had failed from the bottom throughout the day, Kahne put together one of the most important restarts of his career, diving into turn one and clearing Keselowski in the short chute. By the time Denny Hamlin smashed the wall on the backstretch, Kahne was extending his lead. Another caution fell but after Kahne had reached the restart line and he was declared the winner.
Kahne has watched the replays of that incredible ending. And those are the images imprinted in his mind. Not from the first-person point of view, but from the third.
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“It’s just weird how it all turned out,” Kahne said. “I had been going through those issues for a while. It’s basically why I got out of Cup, it was just too hard on my body. It was such a struggle to get through those races, let alone the year-to-year grind.
“So, when I think about wins, I think about my Sonoma (Raceway) win (2009) and my Coke 600s, Bristol (Motor Speedway, 2013); some of those wins are much more memorable because I can replay the whole week and the whole weekends and how they played out. For that Brickyard, I don’t have that. It’s much different.
“As far as a race I wanted to win, I lived in Indy for three years prior to leaving for North Carolina. It was one of those tracks at the top of the list that you would want to win at and I was able to do it. It took many years – I felt like we were one of the best cars in ’04, 06 and ’07, there were so many years we were very competitive there and were never able to win the race. To finally do it late in my NASCAR career, that was sweet.”
Though Kahne may have retired from full-time, Cup Series racing in the fall of 2018, he’s done anything but slow down. He’s since gone back to his roots, touring the World of Outlaws and sprint car circuits and continuing the operation of Kasey Kahne Racing, formed in 2005. He’s won six World of Outlaws championships as an owner.
Still just 44 years old and with his health having improved, the NASCAR racing world may not have seen the last of Kahne, who hinted at a possible return in some form for 2025.
“I still have a pretty serious drive when it comes to competition and I love racing, still to this day,” Kahne said. “I’m hoping to maybe show up a few times this upcoming season. I’ve got a couple of races I’m looking at that I’d be looking to take part in.”