Race Recap for Talladega Superspeedway

• Kasey Kahne and the No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Team buckled down in the closing laps of the AMP Energy 500 to score a second-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway. Kahne, who has been involved in accidents in all three restrictor-plate races this season, tied his career-best second-place finish Sunday at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
• Kahne started the 500 mile event from the 11th position, but was forced to move to the rear of the field prior to the start due to an engine change that the team made following Friday’s practice session.
• Shortly following the green flag, Kahne lost the draft and was about eight seconds behind the lead pack when the caution flag waved. During the caution, crew chief Kenny Francis elected to keep Kahne on the track to gain a few positions and restart mid-pack to get a feel for the handling on the Budweiser Dodge.
• Following a stern “no bump drafting in the corners” warning by NASCAR’s President Mike Helton during the driver’s meeting, the majority of the field stayed single file for the first half of the race.
• Kahne experienced the typical ebb and flow of restrictor plate racing, leading lap 147 before being shuffled to the back the next lap. With drafting help from the 83, Kahne charged toward the front again before two cautions would slow the race during the final 20 laps. The worst incident occurred on lap 184 when Ryan Newman ended upside down in the infield and workers had to cut him out of his car. He was treated and released from the care center.
• While several cars ran out of fuel during the final laps, Francis had called Kahne to pit road to top off on lap 141 and they were able to make it to the end. The field took the green flag for the green-white-checkered on lap 189. Kahne was challenging eventual race winner Jamie McMurray for position when Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart were involved in an incident that ended the race under caution with McMurray scoring the win and Kahne in second.
• Kahne’s runner-up finish moved him into ninth in the point standings, just 12 points shy of eighth-place driver Ryan Newman.
• Championship points’ leader Jimmie Johnson was not a factor all day, but managed to work his way into the sixth position by day’s end and extend his lead by 184 points over second place Mark Martin.

Quotes from Kahne on his second-place finish:
“The team did a good job with our Budweiser Dodge. We had a good handling car, but lost the draft a couple of times. We needed to be in the middle of the draft. (Brian) Vickers was pushing me really hard there before the caution. I was just in the right place at the right time.

“It unfolded well for us at the end. If we got back in the pack, we’d lose the draft. We needed to have cars around us and tried to keep cars behind us mainly. If we were able to do that, we could race pretty decent. The car handled good which I think everybody’s car handled good here. We just kind of shot up through there, had great track position on that restart and ran second. It was good for our Budweiser team.”

WHY DO YOU THINK IT GOT REALLY CRAZY THERE AT THE END? “When all these cars are bunched up, just one little move by one car and the other guy moves the other way to block or just to go in another gap and that closes, the others wreck. That’s just this type of racing and I think everybody understands that. It’s happened at Daytona plenty of times. It’s happened here. Or you just get up on the wall and kind of go until about 10 cars decide that it’s enough of that and we want to build up a line and come back. I wait for somebody to do it because I’m not the guy that’s going to jump out or I’ll be the guy running 43 after that.”

WHAT ABOUT THE BUMP DRAFTING IN THE CORNERS? “They (NASCAR) put a stop to it in the corners and that was it. You couldn’t get all that speed built up that some of the guys were doing in practice. It seemed to work out just fine like that. I felt fine with it really. Down the straightaways you could still get behind a car and push really hard and build that speed up, that MPH and get off in the corners. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pushing in the corners, but I think they (NASCAR) went there because the speeds went up so much. Myself and (Denny) Hamlin hooked up on Friday and went about six-tenths faster than the people drafting, or five-tenths. They just didn’t want to see that. You could still do it on the straightaway which was fine I think.”

KENNY FRANCIS (Crew Chief, No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger)
“The Budweiser Dodge was pretty good all day. It was an up and down day, but that’s always the case here. The guys did a great job all day and unlike most Talladega races, fuel mileage played a factor there at the end.”

The following is the finishing position of the other beverage-sponsored cars that participated at Talladega Superspeedway :

• Jamie McMurray and the No. 26 Irwin/Crown Royal Ford Team finished First
• Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet, finished 11th
• Brian Vickers, driver of the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota, finished 13th
• Casey Mears and the No. 07 Jack Daniels Chevrolet team finished 25th
• Scott Speed, driver of the No. 82 Red Bull Toyota, finished 27th
• Kurt Busch and the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge team finished 30th 

The following is the finishing order of the other Richard Petty Motorsports cars at Talladega:

• Elliott Sadler, driver of the No. 19 Stanley Ford finished ninth
• Reed Sorenson, driver of the No. 43 Liberty Medical Dodge finished 16th
• AJ Allmendinger, driver of the No. 44 Hunt Brothers Pizza Dodge finished 33rd 

Three races remain before the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to Texas Motor Speedway for next weekend's Dickies 500.  ABC will provide live television coverage of the event beginning with its pre-race show at 2 p.m. ET. The green flag is scheduled to wave at 2:45 p.m. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) will provide live radio coverage of the race.