Photos by Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

NASCAR Nextel Cup teleconference moments

Drivers: Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson

What are your emotions on race day just before they say, “Gentlemen, start your engines”?

"I'd say my emotions have changed over the years. My rookie and sophomore years, I was nervous about the event and what was going to take place. But now that I really accept how long the races are, and know in the back of my mind that I've got four or five hours of work ahead of me, I enjoy the pre-race ceremony and the national anthem and watching the flyover and getting in the car and making sure I'm buckled in and all my safety stuff is right and the radio is on and all the gauges are right before I roll off pit road. It's more of a systems check than it is an emotional high like it used to be."

2006 Early Season

Debbie Speicher asked Kasey Kahne:

“Obviously the cars, I enjoy racing. I’ve done that since I was little. Now I’m at a great spot in my career to race in the top series. I really enjoy that. Probably the things that have really made it neat are some of the other things that come along with it like recently starting the Kasey Kahne Foundation with my sister. Because of NASCAR and Nextel those are the reasons I can do that because of all the fans out there. To start a foundation like that to help underprivileged kids really means a lot to me. Those are the things that stick out. Hopefully we can keep doing it and doing better.”

Can you feel momentum building up to a win, or does a win happen and then you feel momentum within your team?

“That's a good question. Sometimes it happens in the middle of it, sometimes it happens at the start of it, and sometimes it just happens and you don't have it on either side of it. That's probably not a real great answer for you.”

“I can feel momentum a lot of times but not necessarily from wins. You can have momentum and do like we did at Chicago last year, get beat on two tires and not win the race and still have a lot of momentum. And then I think you can have times, for example, Dale, Jr., wasn't really having a great year last year and he came and won Chicago, had a great pit call that day and won the race and probably didn't have a lot of momentum before that race and probably didn't have a lot of momentum after the race, either.

“I think it can come at any time. I think you have a better chance of winning when you have some momentum and you're running good and leading laps and doing all that stuff, but I think it can really come at any side of it.