Richmond, VA (My Sportsbook) - Kasey Kahne, six times a runner-up but never a winner, finally made the coveted trip to Victory Lane by capturing Saturday night's Chevy American Revolution 400 at the Richmond International Raceway.
The No.9 Evernham Motorsports Dodge crossed the finish line 1.674 seconds ahead of second place Tony Stewart.
"This whole race team did a great job, the pit stops were unbelievable," said Kahne. We drove so hard all night racing Tony and to end up beating him was pretty cool."
Kahne, the pole winner, led just one lap before he lost the lead to Stewart.
The No.20 Home Depot Chevrolet loves to drive on the 0.75-mile short track. He earned his first NASCAR Nextel Cup win at RIR and has a total of three trips to its Victory Lane.
Stewart took the lead and ran with it for a while. He led the next 51 laps before he was passed by a charging Kevin Harvick while they were dodging slower traffic. But after one lap Stewart retook the top spot with a move underneath Harvick's No.29 Chevy.
The first pivotal moment of the race took place on lap 81 when series points leader Jimmie Johnson got spun by Travis Kvapil and hit the wall. The damage didn't seem too bad until he tried to get back to pit road and his No.48 Chevrolet made a sudden and dramatic jump to the left. He struck the inside wall solidly and was done for the evening. So was his 127-point lead in the championship.
"The cars in front of me were sliding around and checked up and I went to turn inside of them...and got hit from behind," said Johnson. "I went down the backstretch and the steering broke, I climbed on the brakes and it turned into the wall again."
At the 100-lap mark (of 400), Kahne held about a one second lead over Kurt Busch with Stewart in third. Busch moved up one notch and collected five bonus points for leading lap 134, but Stewart came flying back to the front on lap 136 took the lead for the third time.
The driver in second place in the championship, Jeff Gordon, hit the wall while avoiding a Rusty Wallace spin on lap 166 and fell a lap down.
"It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life," said Gordon. "You know a car spun in front of me, I saw smoke and I slowed down, decided to take it a little high. I just ran straight in the wall, all by myself."
On lap 198, Gordon took his car behind the wall with an ongoing steering problem and final re-emerged 52 laps down.
Meanwhile, the three drivers, Busch, Kahne and Stewart, exchanged the lead numerous times over the next 100 laps as the drivers approached the halfway point. They were more than a second faster than their nearest competitor - Ryan Newman.
On lap 233, Stewart spun out while working his way through traffic and fell to fourth place. On the ensuing pit stop, Busch was the recipient of some bad racing luck. The No.97 Roush Ford fell one lap down to the leaders when one of the lug nuts jammed between the caliper and the rotor. He was forced to make a second stop to remove it.
Stewart rebounded from his spin and moved past Newman and back into second place behind Kahne as the drivers crossed lap 250. He passed Kahne just before the 300th lap as the drivers were trying to negotiate their way through traffic.
Stewart and Kahne put Dale Earnhardt Jr. a lap down moments later (lap 308) as they continued to set a blistering pace. The two drivers were more than two seconds ahead of the field and just 20 cars remained on the lead lap. By lap 325 the lead had exploded to more than seven seconds.
However, on lap 332, Robby Gordon brought out the sixth caution of the night and the huge lead shrank to zero again.
Kahne beat Stewart out of the pits on their final stop and now that the crews had done their job, the race was between the drivers.
When the green flag dropped, Kahne and Stewart once again moved away from the rest of the pack. With 50 laps to go their lead was more than three seconds. But unlike the previous restarts, on this one Kahne was slowly pulling away from Stewart too.
A Travis Kvapil spin brought out another caution and another restart. Same result, Kahne and Stewart moved out right from the drop of the green flag. And again Kahne slowly built his lead as the laps dwindled down.
Thirty laps to go and Kahne's lead was 1.504 over Stewart. Newman was now on Stewart's bumper and fighting for position which left Kahne in cruise mode.
But another caution came out when Hermie Sadler's engine let go spilling oil on the track, catching Mike Bliss in it, and spinning him backwards into the outside wall.
The restart came with just 14 laps to go, but the green didn't last long. On lap 389 Dale Jarrett spun and took Robby Gordon and Mark Martin with him.
The final restart began on lap 393.
Stewart stayed right on Kahne's bumper this time and as Kahne guarded the bottom of the track, Stewart move up to the top. They were side-by-side for two laps, but Kahne fought him off and moved cleanly back in front of the No.20 Chevrolet.
He maintained a working margin as the drivers came to the white flag lap and while Stewart was forced to guard second place from Newman, Kahne finally took his first Nextel Cup win.
"I'm just really happy for him, he's long overdue," said Stewart. "The kid has done an awesome job for two years and he just needed that perfect night. Tonight was that night."
Newman, Kyle Busch and Harvick completed the top-five.
Despite his 40th-place finish, Johnson retained the championship lead, although the margin over Greg Biffle fell from 127 to just 41 points (1,562-1,521). Jeff Gordon (1,438) dropped one place to third, 124 points behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate. Elliott Sadler (1,413), Kurt Busch (1,407), Stewart (1,397), Newman (1,370) and Harvick (1,364) all moved to less than 200 points behind the leader.
The next event is the All-Star race at the Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 21st. The next points race is the following weekend for the longest race of the season - The Coca Cola 600.
