A pass of Matt Kenseth with two laps to go gave Kasey Kahne the victory Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway and along with it a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Kasey Kahne wins the 2014 Oral-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway
Kasey Kahne passed Matt Kenseth in the final laps to win Sunday’s NASCAR race.
Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports
Kahne made the decisive pass following the second green-white-checkered finish. The win is Kahne’s first of the year and the 17th of his career. He joins Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson in the playoff field.
“It’s been tough and we have had kind of a downer year at times and then we started running really good,” Kahne said. “Last week we were really fast at Bristol and then we had a problem. So it’s been kind of one thing after the other, but we are in the Chase with my teammates.”
Kenseth finished second followed by Denny Hamlin in third, Johnson in fourth and Carl Edwards fifth. Danica Patrick placed a career-best sixth.
“I am just so happy for the team,” Patrick said. “We have had pretty fast cars for quite a while now and not really great finishes for it.”
Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick had the dominant car for the majority of the evening, leading a race-high 195 laps. But he became entangled in a multi-car incident on the first green-white-checkered restart when Joey Logano and Paul Menard made contact and swept up the track. Harvick finished 19th.
“The 27 (Menard) and 20 (Kenseth) only had two tires and you knew they were going to get a bad restart,” Harvick said. “I got on the outside of the 27 as soon as I could and the 22 (Logano) was on the outside of me and the 27 just kept coming up until we all wrecked. Nobody was letting out of the gas at that point and it’s just kind of the nature of the beast I guess.”
In his first race back after missing three races, Tony Stewart cut a right-front tire and crashed just past halfway. He finished 41st and will need a victory in the season-finale Saturday at Richmond International Raceway to qualify for the Chase.
In addition to Harvick and Logano, several contenders experienced problems throughout the night. Gordon, the points leader, was running second when a tire let go, sending him into the wall. He lost two laps making repairs, but rallied to finish 17th and on the lead.
Brad Keselowski was running in the top five when the slower car of Josh Wise impeded his progress, forcing Keselowski into the wall. Sustaining heavy damage, Keselowski retired.
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