No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger Race Facts
UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 --- Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Driver: Kasey Kahne
Team Director: Tommy Baldwin
Team Owner: Ray Evernham
Chassis: No. 107
Info: Brand new
KASEY KAHNE QUOTES
Test Session at Las Vegas:
“The testing session went good. I was really happy with the things we learned over the two days. We were pretty fast. We had a couple of things to work on and they figured both out during the race at California. I think we’ll go there with a really good Dodge. We ran well there last year. It’s definitely a track that I like. I’ve always raced well at the track and look forward to going back.”
Team improvements during the off-season:
“The guys did a great job during the off season building better race cars and engines. We’re more together as a team; we spent a lot of time together over the winter. These guys were great last year, and I think they will be even better this year.”
Effect of the shorter spoiler:
“It was a factor at California, but I think it will be a bigger factor at tracks like Las Vegas and Atlanta. It probably means we’ll have to race those tracks a little different than we did before NASCAR took away the spoiler.”
TOMMY BALDWIN
Success at intermediate tracks:
“Overall, I think we’ve made an improvement on every part of our program, not just the mile-and-half tracks. I think we made improvements on our speedway and short-track stuff. We’re looking forward to showing up every weekend.”
STATS & FACTS
KAHNE AT LAS VEGAS
Kahne earned his first NASCAR Nextel Cup Series pole position, setting a new race track record in his first career Cup Series visit to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2004. The feat marked the first time a rookie had won the pole at Las Vegas and tied Kahne with Mark Martin and Kurt Busch for winning a pole in just his third career start.
Kahne was equally fast when the green flag fell for the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 on Sunday. He took his first career race lead – twice for 43 laps led – and made up 11 positions over the final 60 laps to finish in second place. The finish was his second consecutive runner-up finish, one week after his breakthrough run at Rockingham.
LAS VEGAS TEST
The No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger team conducted a two-day test session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Monday, Jan. 31 and Tuesday, Feb. 1. Kasey Kahne unofficially ran among the fastest cars in his new Dodge Charger at the 1.5-mile oval. Kahne participated in the test sessions along with 42 other NASCAR Nextel Cup teams.
NO. 9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE HIGHLIGHTS AT LAS VEGAS
The No. 9 Dew Crew has never fielded a car to finish outside of the top-15 at Las Vegas. Bill Elliott piloted the No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge to finish 14th, eighth and 14th in 2001-2003, respectively, and Kasey Kahne finished second in last year’s UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400.
