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Kahne returns to top Happy Hour |
In the spring of 2006 Kasey Kahne won convincingly at the 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway as he and his #9 Evernham Motorsport team established themselves as one of the combinations to beat on NASCAR's fastest tracks. 18 months on and despite the investment of the Gillett family Kahne and his #9 team are in the doldrums having failed to make the Chase for the Championship and spending much of the year doing nothing but making up the numbers.
However Sunday's Pep Boys 500 at the ultra fast Atlanta oval could provide Kahne with an opportunity to show the rest of the Nextel Cup garage that he and his #9 GEM team are back on form as he paced the final Happy Hour practice session of the weekend.
Kahne led the weekend's first practice session on Friday, was third fastest on Saturday morning before returning to the top of the timesheets with a best lap of 29.419secs (188.450mph) in the afternoon.
Behind Kahne was Penske Racing's Kurt Busch and outgoing Ganassi driver David Stremme in a Dodge 1-2-3 with the Ford of David Gilliland fourth and then another Dodge in the shape of Reed Sorenson rounding out the top five.
March Atlanta race winner Jimmie Johnson, fresh from his triumph last Sunday at Martinsville was the leading Chevrolet representative in sixth position with Dale Earnhardt Jr, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton completing the top ten.
Martin Truex Jr, who was fastest in Saturday's first practice session, was eleventh quickest although defending Pep Boys 500 winner Tony Stewart and current Chase for the Championship point leader Jeff Gordon still struggled to find their form and were only 24th and 25th fastest respectively.
