Kahne goes from All-Star voted-in to Victory Lane

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NASCAR.COM - Kahne goes from All-Star voted-in to Victory Lane - May 17, 2008

By Sporting News Wire Service
May 18, 2008
12:05 AM EDT

CONCORD, N.C. -- The fans must have known something Saturday night.

Voted into the Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway after he failed to make the field in the Sprint Showdown qualifying race, Kasey Kahne made the most of his opportunity by winning the All-Star event and the $1 million prize that goes with the victory.

Taking fuel only during his final pit stop between the third and fourth segments of the four-segment, 100-lap event, Kahne won the All-Star Race for the first time, beating Greg Biffle to the finish line. Matt Kenseth ran third, followed by Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart, the only Joe Gibbs Racing driver whose car survived the night.

Kahne gave Dodge its first victory in the All-Star event.

After a fuel-only pit stop between the third and final segments, Johnson led the field to a restart on Lap 76 but soon surrendered the top spot to Denny Hamlin. But Kahne took the lead for good off Turn 4 on Lap 84 when Hamlin's engine expired.

From that point on, Kahne held off a determined charge from Biffle, who faded in the closing laps and finished 1.327 seconds behind the winner.

Pole-sitter Kyle Busch finally found a foe that could slow him down -- a mechanical problem. After leading all 25 laps of the first segment, Busch was cruising with a 1.5-second lead over Carl Edwards in the second segment when his No. 18 Toyota dropped a cylinder on Lap 36.

Edwards overtook Busch on Lap 39 and remained at the point for the remainder of the second segment. Three laps later, Dale Earnhardt Jr. screamed past the hobbled Camry entering Turn 2. When the segment ended eight laps later, Busch had fallen to sixth.

After a lengthy diagnosis during the 10-minute break between segments two and three, crew chief Steve Addington finally pronounced, "We're done."

"We just didn't make it [Saturday]," Busch said, before his crew pushed the car to the garage. "We'll have to go back to the shop and work on some things."