NASCAR Nationwide Series Results: Kasey Kahne’s Engine Loses Power On Final Restart

Kasey Kahne in the best position of anyone to challenge Joey Logano for Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series win at Dover on the final restart.

Kahne lined up second with 18 laps to go, and Logano – who had dominated the race – was right next to him. Could Kahne somehow get his No. 38 Turner Motorsports car in front of Logano’s No. 18?

We’ll never know, because Kahne said his engine somehow shut off when he hit the throttle.

“I took off right with Logano and felt really good, and then the whole thing just shut off,” Kahne said. “So I’m just sitting there wide open, and the engine wasn’t running. So then I’m waiting and I’m like pumping the throttle, and finally it decided to go again.”

Kahne said the motor then went at 50 percent power down the frontstretch – while his competitors went all over the place to dodge the car – and suddenly “launched” when he got to Turn 1. His temperature gauge shot up from 200 to 300 degrees in the course of the next 10 laps, so he could only assume something was wrong with the engine.

The team initially thought he had a fuel pickup problem because the car had done the same thing earlier in the race. It shut off on pit road in the first sign of trouble, so fuel pickup was the best guess at the time.

“It stalled and it was just dead,” he said. “You’re trying to figure out what to do, and finally it just refires again and everything is fine.”

Kahne fell back to 11th when the second incident happened, but he rallied to finish eighth.