Six years ago, Kasey Kahne announced his immediate retirement from Cup Series racing. It was right in the middle of the 2018 campaign, his health problems were mounting, and Kahne couldn’t find it in him to stretch till the season finale. He is set for a return to action at the Xfinity Series on April 19 this year. The 44-year-old reflected on those days of struggle recently.
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When Kahne called it quits as a full-time racer, he still had 11 races left in the season. It was getting increasingly difficult for him to deal with the dehydration and the physical toll it was taking during the long Cup Series races. It was even affecting his vision during races.
“The reason it was time was my body was just telling me it was time. My dehydration was so bad by the time I got to the center part of the year. I mean, the last few Cup races I ran, yeah, it was as bad as I’ve ever felt in my life,” Kahne told the press at the Rockingham Speedway’s media center. Incidentally, Rockingham is the reason why he is making a comeback now.
The abrupt retirement in 2018 did not hurt Kahne’s reputation as one of the prominent drivers of the modern era. In a career that began in 2004, he won 18 races. His resume helped him continue racing in sprint cars after 2018. The extreme hydration problems, after all, are less of an issue in the short-duration races. And he had not planned to race in NASCAR again.
But the return of the Rockingham Speedway to the calendar changed his mind. Kahne has fond memories of the track. The first laps he raced around the historic short track, in the early 2000s, had opened the doors for him to enter NASCAR. He still remembers the day he tested for the Busch Series team, ppc Racing, at the venue.
Kahne is excited to return to the race track where it all started
The story of how Kahne arrived at Rockingham for the test is brilliant. He had won a sprint car race in Florida, drove through the night to reach Rockingham, slept in the track’s parking lot, and got to his test car the next morning.
It was the first time he got to drive a stock car. Fortunately, he was good enough to get a hang of the machinery pretty fast. Kahne was all smiles while reminiscing his wonderful journey.
“It felt familiar coming in. There were familiar faces. Hanging out behind the trailer this morning felt pretty normal. When you put basically your whole life in this racing and then you take a little time off, it still feels familiar,” he said.
Kahne is making his comeback in the N.C. Education Lottery 250, racing for Richard Childress Racing with the #33 Chevrolet. A good performance on his favorite track could hopefully see him take part in more races going forward.
