Kahne well-suited to rebound after poor start to Chase

	Kasey Kahne's day ended early last Sunday, but his shot at the title didn't, although he'll need to be close to perfect to achieve it. Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
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Kasey Kahne spent most of Sunday afternoon at Dover perched atop a pit box in the garage area, staring out into space. It was as if he'd just been through something traumatic, like a car accident.

Actually, he had.

"I had nowhere to go," said a dejected Kahne after slamming into the spinning car of Tony Stewart just 12 laps into the race. "I wanted to go low. I wanted to go high. I couldn't go anywhere.

"That's something you never see, Tony losing a car. Things happen, and I was the car that hit him."

The wreck left Kahne hanging in the garage distraught and disappointed, 182 points out of the championship lead with eight races remaining. A popular dark horse pick for this year's title, Kahne roared into the Chase on the strength of a win and a third place finish in the last two regular-season races. Since then, though, the best he's been able to muster in two Chase events is 16th; only Kyle Busch has put up worse numbers out of the 10 Chasers.

Certainly, those are stats not easily ignored. But by no means does that make Kahne's dream of a Nextel Cup trophy impossible.

In 2004, Jimmie Johnson had an awful start to the title Chase. After limping into the field with a 36th place finish at Richmond, he then proceeded to finish 11th, 10th, 37th and 32nd in his first four Chase races to drop from 2nd to 9th in points, 247 out of the lead.

In order to have any chance at the title, Johnson needed to go out and win most, of the remaining races -- and that's exactly what he did. Starting a streak of three straight wins at one of his best tracks, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Johnson went on to win four times in his last six starts to make a spirited charge to the front of the pack. In the end, he fell just short in his championship bid -- but only by eight points.

Kahne's deficit not only is much smaller than Johnson's was, he's also got two extra races to recover, as well as the best track record of all Chase drivers on most of the remaining tracks. Kahne's specialty has been 1.5 milers -- he's won at three of them already this season -- and he'll have five more opportunities to cash in during the series' final eight events.

To make that type of charge, Kahne needs to be aggressive toward the end of races, something he's shown to be capable of this season. And while that hard-charging style has led to mistakes (Indianapolis being the most notable one) it's also paid dividends in jump-starting his career.

It's easy to forget that in his first two seasons, Kahne was the ultimate bridesmaid, coming home second a whopping seven times while winning just once. Now he's the Nextel Cup's win leader with five already this year, and it wouldn't be out of the question to see him rack up three or four more before the season is over, more than enough to get him back in contention for the title. In fact, a win this Sunday in Kansas and simply surviving the multi-car wreck at Talladega -- a tornado in itself that tends to envelop half the Chase field -- and the No. 9 team will be right back in this thing.

So, Kahne has to take a deep breath, relax ... and believe in himself and his team. At the moment, though, mission not accomplished.

"No more championship," stated Kahne emphatically on Sunday. "We all thought we had a shot to win the Nextel Cup, but you can't have two rough weeks."

If he's smart, Kahne will reconsider that position. The goal of a title is still within reach; but if he refuses to believe it, the season -- just like Sunday's race car -- simply will be laid to waste.

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