Kasey Kahne cruises to third Coca-Cola 600 triumph
May 27, 2012 (EDITORS: Will be UPDATED)
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
CONCORD,
N.C. -- Kasey Kahne continued his emphatic turnaround Sunday night at
Charlotte Motor Speedway, handily winning the Coca-Cola 600.
In
his 300th NASCAR Sprint Cup start, Kahne posted his first victory of
the season, his first since joining Hendrick Motorsports and the 13th of
his career. Kahne beat runner-up Denny Hamlin to the finish line by
4.295 seconds.
Kyle
Busch ran third, followed by Greg Biffle, Brad Keselowski and Dale
Earnhardt Jr., as nine cars finished on the lead lap at the 1.5-mile
track.
A
caution on Lap 319 for debris in Turn 3 interrupted some of the best
racing of the night. Before the yellow, Biffle and Kahne had swapped the
lead repeatedly, with neither able to gain a clear advantage. Hamlin
was in the mix, too, trailing the top two cars by less than a
half-second.
Hamlin
and Earnhardt stayed on the track under the caution, while the other
eight lead-lap cars came to the pits on Lap 320 for two-tire and
four-tire stops. After the subsequent restart on Lap 326, Kahne needed
fewer than eight laps to blow past both Earnhardt and Hamlin into the
lead.
On
Lap 333, Kahne powered past Hamlin off Turn 2 and began to pull away.
Kahne maintained an advantage of more than one second through a cycle of
green-flag pit stops that began on Lap 353 when Biffle and Kyle Busch
brought their cars to pit road.
That
round of pit stops proved disastrous for Jimmie Johnson, who dragged a
fuel can out of his pit stall and returned to pit road under green to
serve a stop-and-go penalty. The miscue put Johnson a lap down and left
Kahne and Hamlin to decide the race between them.
Notes:
Kahne is the ninth different winner in 12 races this season . . . Greg
Biffle led a race-high 204 laps . . . Danica Patrick finished 30th, five
laps down, in her Charlotte debut . . . Pole-sitter Aric Almirola ran
16th, two laps down . . . Johnson finished 11th, one lap down.
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