CONCORD, N.C. -- Starting Sunday's Bank of America 500 from the 20th position, Kasey Kahne was well on his way toward the top-10 early in the race.
After a competition caution on Lap 25, Kahne lined up 13th for the restart. But on Lap 40, he had to make an unscheduled pit stop after cutting a tire.
"I was just coming out to the wall to enter the corner and I felt my right-front (tire) drop a little bit," Kahne explained. "It didn’t explode, but it started going down so I just hit the brakes full-on and didn’t hit the wall too hard."
He returned to the track down two laps with time to make up some positions -- but on Lap 60 he made contact with the wall and was forced to head to the garage for repairs.
"I knew I needed to get by Matt (Kenseth) to get one of those laps back and just right in the center of the corner I was just going back wide-open throttle and it popped that time," he said. "This HendrickRideAlong.com Chevrolet was really fast. It’s discouraging, but that’s the way it goes.”
While he was discouraged by the tire issues that left him with a 43rd-place result, Kahne said he was pleased with the No. 5 HendrickRideAlong.com Chevrolet SS that the team brought to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
"We were coming -- we had a good car both runs," he said. "Just didn’t work out.”