Eager to bounce back from a disappointing 2005 season, Evernham Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne set the second fastest time of the entire Las Vegas test on Wednesday morning before sitting down to discuss the set-up at Evernham Motorsports and his thoughts on the upcoming Superbowl.
KASEY KAHNE
“I think hard work by the team, there have been some changes that Ray made at Evernham Motorsports and I think that's stuff going to be huge. It's going to be good. This is really the first test as a team with other cars around. We went to Kentucky and Nashville a few times, but it's been a great test for us so far. Kenny Francis, Mike Shiflette and Keith and the rest of the guys have done a great job. I think just hard work (will make a difference).
“That's what they've done in the off season to get our Dodge Charger where it needs to be. When we come back in a month and a half it'll be good enough to run top five and contend.”
Q
IT'S YOUR SPONSORS' RACE AT VEGAS. DOES THAT ADD PRESSURE?
KK
“It's always exciting. UAW is a great partner of Evernham Motorsports. DaimlerChrysler and Dodge are great partners. To win one of these races would be great. To win at Vegas would be big and to win with the sponsor of the race being one of our sponsors would make it that much better, so we definitely have been looking forward to coming out to this test and seeing where we're at. It's a test that you can learn a lot. You can go to Kentucky all winter long and show up at Vegas and be bad or you can show up here and be pretty good and work on it and make it better.
“So far we've been improving our car and we feel like when we leave tonight we're going to have it pretty decent. You can actually gamble in Kentucky, too. They have some riverboats right around the corner. It's not like the Bellagio. It's a small boat.”
Q
HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR OFFSEASON?
KK
“After Homestead I told Ray when I was leaving the trailer after that race that I was going to be gone a week and a half and I didn't want to know anything about racing. With the season we had we needed to get after it and get prepared and try to get our Chargers where they needed to be. That first week and a half I went on vacation and came back to Charlotte and did some stuff there. Then we tested and did some appearances for a while.
