Kasey Kahne

Early life

Kasey Kahne was born on April 10, 1980, in Enumclaw, Washington, to his parents Kelly and Tammy. His father Kelly was a mechanics enthusiast with a background in motorsports, and his mother Tammy would later manage aspects of his early career. He has an older sister Shanon and a younger brother Kale. He grew up on a 50 acre rural property where he rode four-wheelers and dirt bikes. Growing up he also participated in other sports like baseball and basketball, and he would drive snowmobiles in the mountains during the winter.

Racing career

Kahne began racing open-wheel sprint cars at Deming Speedway at seventeen in Deming, Washington, before moving up to Skagit Speedway in Alger, Washington, and then he moved to USAC. In 2000, Kahne made a trip to Pennsylvania where he won the season opener at the historic Williams Grove Speedway. He was hired by Steve Lewis, who had also employed future NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon, Jason Leffler, Tony Stewart and Kenny Irwin Jr. In his first year on the circuit, he was named Rookie of the Year, as well as winning the national midget championship.

He continued to run USAC, as well as the Toyota Atlantic Series and the World of Outlaws. In 2002, Kahne made 20 starts in the Busch Series driving the No. 98 Channellock Ford Taurus for Robert Yates Racing. His best finish was a tenth place finish at Cabela's 250. A year later, he moved to the No. 38 Great Clips Ford for Akins Motorsports full-time.

He won his first pole at Michigan International Speedway and his first Busch Series race at the Ford 300. Kahne finished seventh in the points standings. With his move to full-time competition in the Cup Series in 2004, he also drove 30 races for Akins in the Busch Series, finishing 13th in points. In 2005, he made 22 starts in the Busch Series, splitting time with Akins and Evernham's new No. 6 team.

He won the O'Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway and the United Way 300 at Kansas Speedway. On May 26, 2007, Kahne won the Busch Series' Carquest Auto Parts 300 race at Lowe's Motor Speedway for his first win of 2007. On August 24, 2007, Kahne won the pole for the Cup Series' Sharpie 500 at Bristol, his second pole of the 2007 Nextel Cup Series season. Later that night, during the Busch Series' Food City 250, Kahne passed Ryan Newman on the top side in a three-wide pass that included Jason Leffler on the bottom.

He held off the hard-charging Leffler to score his seventh career Busch win and his second of 2007. In 2009, Kahne ran fewer events in other NASCAR series than in previous seasons, only seven (four in the Nationwide Series, three in the Whelen Modified Tour). With fewer distractions, Kahne's Sprint Cup stats slightly improved that year. During the 2014 Nationwide season, Kahne scored an upset win at the Nationwide Series' Subway Firecracker 250, passing teammate Regan Smith on the final lap.

The margin was 0.021 seconds. On January 24, 2025, NASCAR announced that Kahne would return to the driver's seat for the Xfinity Series race at Rockingham Speedway on April 19. Kahne has six career starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, winning five of them; his lone non-victory is a second-place run at Pocono Raceway in 2010. In 2004, he made a pair of starts in the series at Darlington Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway, driving the No. 2 Team ASE Racing Dodge Ram for Ultra Motorsports, winning both races.

At the 2015 Charlotte Truck race, he held off Erik Jones for the win by .005 seconds, the second-closest margin in Truck Series history. Kahne replaced Bill Elliott in the No. 9 Dodge for Evernham Motorsports at the end of the 2003 season when Elliott announced a part-time schedule starting with the 2004 season. Since Kahne was still under contract with Ford, the manufacturer filed a lawsuit against him after he joined Evernham Motorsports. U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland ruled in favor of Kahne, citing a clause in his contract with Ford that stipulated that the manufacturer had to provide Kahne with a full-time ride on a Ford team that both parties mutually agreed upon.

That clause also stipulated that if an agreement could not be reached by either party, then Kahne could seek a ride with a different manufacturer, without breaking the terms of his contract with Ford. In 2004, Kahne surprised many by nearly winning several races (including five 2nd-place finishes and 13 Top 5's), winning four poles, and capturing the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award. He narrowly missed the Chase for the Nextel Cup after Jeremy Mayfield, his teammate, claimed the final spot.

In 2005, Kahne scored his first career Nextel Cup victory in his sophomore season 2005, after a dominating performance in the Chevy American Revolution 400 at Richmond International Raceway. It was also the first win for the Dodge Charger, which returned to NASCAR that year. It was the first time a Dodge won a race at Richmond International Raceway since Richard Petty did so in 1975. In addition, he became the first driver born in the 1980s to win a race in NASCAR's premier series.

He also scored two poles in back-to-back weeks at Darlington and Richmond during the same year. Despite this, he was plagued with inconsistency and slumped to 23rd in the points. On March 20, 2006, Kahne won the rain-delayed Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Nearly three weeks later, he won the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 at Texas.

After that, he won four more races – a season sweep at Lowe's Motor Speedway in the Coca-Cola 600 and in the Bank of America 500 holding off Jimmie Johnson (who finished second in both races) and victories at California and Michigan. On September 9, 2006, Kahne successfully raced his way into the Chase for The Cup after finishing third in Richmond. He was the tenth and last qualifier to make the Chase. He edged defending Nextel Cup Champion Tony Stewart out by sixteen points, but a disappointing sixteenth-place finish at New Hampshire, a crash at Dover, and running out of gas at Kansas ended his hopes for his first championship title.

Kahne finished strong with five top-tens in the remaining seven races, including winning the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. On November 27, 2006, Kahne was honored by being invited to raise the traditional 12th Man flag prior to the Seattle Seahawks Monday Night Football game against the Green Bay Packers at Qwest Field in Seattle. The ceremony has been ongoing since 2003, and involves a different Seattle-area sports hero and/or beloved member of the community kicking things off before every Seahawks home game.

The Seahawks beat the Packers 34–24. During the qualifying for the 2007 Daytona 500, officials found holes in the wheel wells of his Dodge Charger. A crew member said it was just tape that had fallen off a hole in the tire. Officials said that the tape had been cut.

He was one of the four drivers among Matt Kenseth and his two teammates, Scott Riggs and Elliott Sadler, whose cars had been found with aerodynamic-improving modifications. His team was one of the six teams found with illegal modifications in the Daytona festivities. At the Sharpie 500, a day after winning the pole and the Busch race, Kahne dominated most of the race, leading 305 out of 500 laps and finishing second to Carl Edwards. This was his best finish of the 2007 season.

After a disappointing 2007 season, Kahne finished nineteenth in points with zero wins, one top-five, eight top-tens, and an average finish of 22.2.

Film and television

Kasey Kahne appeared in the first episode of the 2006 Biography Channel series Driven to Win, a half-hour show that looked at his early life, how he got into NASCAR, his 2004 Rookie of the Year season, and his first win the following year. The DVD also covers his foundation and his own sprint car team. His No. 9 Dodge Dealers car appeared in the 2005 Disney movie Herbie: Fully Loaded, where he was one of four drivers who trapped Herbie and beat him up in the final race; a race announcer mentions him by name. Kahne made a quick cameo in Eric Church's 2010 music video Smoke a Little Smoke.