Kasey Kahne to get his first drive of a Hendrick car at Charlotte Motor Speedway – NASCAR news
Kasey Kahne will be getting his first shot at driving the No. 5 car of Hendrick Motorsports at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 17, 2011.
Kahne is set to join Hendrick Motorsports from the 2012 season and will be driving the No. 5 car for them. Current team Red Bull will be closing their operations in NASCAR from next season.
Kahne will be driving the car at Charlotte Motor Speedway to conduct a fuel-injection test for Hendrick Motorsports. Since his own car is not included in the test run, he says that there will be no conflict of teams for him.
“I'm going to get into the 5 for the Charlotte test the Monday after the race. That'll be the first time I've been in one of those cars. That will be the first and maybe the only chance I'll get in those tests that are coming up,” Kahne said.
He is also being joined at Hendrick Motorsports by his current crew chief Kenny Francis.
Kahne felt that the test will be good for him before joining Hendrick Motorsports and hopes that it will be a productive endeavour.
“For myself, to drive fuel injection, I haven't tried that out yet,” Kahne said. “So to get to do that and to work on some of the little stuff that you wouldn't get to see until next year, I just think it's good for me.”
Kahne has already driven for three different manufacturers so far. He drove Dodges for Evernham Motorsports first, then switched to Ford as the company evolved into Richard Petty Motorsports, and finally took the reins of a Toyota this season. Driving a
Chevrolet next season will complete his portfolio of having driven for all four manufacturers.
He is excited to be joining Hendrick Motorsports and be part of the team which includes Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Kahne has performed well this season with Red Bull and even though the team is set to shut down at the end of the season, he is still giving it his best. He put in a great show in his last race at Loudon and was in the top 3 until the final few laps when
his car went low on fuel and he had to go into the pits with 16 laps to go. He ended up in 15th place.
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