A Team for the 21st Century

It’s an organization built in the new century, with a multi-tasking team owner more likely to follow his drivers via text messaging and YouTube rather than in person. Here’s a look at the motorsports team of tomorrow—Kasey Kahne Racing.

Words: Mark Bourcier

Race fans across the United States know Kasey Kahne, who plies his trade as one of the top NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers and moonlights as a spokesman for any number of team and personal sponsors. But Kahne wears another hat, too. He’s the owner—as well as the number one fan—of Kasey Kahne Racing (KKR), which fields a variety of Mopar®-powered short-track equipment from a pair of well-equipped shops in Brownsburg, Ind., and Mooresville, N.C.

The KKR team is not only notable for the superstar pedigree provided by Kahne, but also for its youthful make-up. Kahne plays the role of the “wizened” team owner at the ripe old age of 27. His cousin, Willie Kahne, is KKR team manager—he’s only 31. The new pilot of KKR’s No. 49 USAC Sprint and Midget car, Brad Sweet? He’s all of 22 years old (The KKR USAC team also employed 19-year-old Kevin Swindell throughout the 2007 season, before he left to pursue a career in stock car racing; Sweet assumed his seat late in the year). And the seasoned veteran of the KKR USAC squad, at a mere 18 years of age, is Brady Bacon—a recent high school grad.

KKR’s Indiana shop is home to the young team and its USAC Midgets and non-winged Sprint Cars. The North Carolina KKR operation fields winged Sprint Cars for driver Joey Saldana (the elder statesman of this group at age 35), primarily with the hectic World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Series.

The peripatetic Kahne juggled his ten month, 36-race NASCAR schedule in 2007 with the more than 190 races in which KKR drivers competed, as he attempted to monitor his team’s progress while focused on his NASCAR duties. The youthful team owner utilized forms of communication that have become omnipresent in today’s go-go world—text messaging, cell phones and computers—to keep tabs on the progress of his young team.

Looking back, Kahne called 2007 “a pretty good season” for the three-year-old organization. He was thrilled with the young enterprise’s success in 2007 and, in his words, “really looking forward to 2008.”

“It was our first year in the USAC Sprints and Midgets, and our second with the World of Outlaws,” Kahne said. “I felt like the whole team did a good job.”

That’s a bit of an understatement from the ever-modest Kahne regarding the success of his KKR team, considering the outstanding season Saldana recorded.

The Indiana driver and his Open Joist/Mopar Sprinter competed in 87 feature races, counting 77 WoO events as well as a smattering of open-competition and All Star Circuit of Champions dates. He won 15 of those starts, including 13 with the Outlaws. Saldana’s biggest victory came in a weekend sweep of the tradition-rich “Gold Cup Race of Champions” at Chico, Calif., in September, which paid $50,000 for winning the finale. The stellar campaign proved the KKR squad might be young, but they have a nose for the winner’s circle, which is all that matters.

“Joey and everybody on that team did a really good job,” Kahne said. “We finished third in [series] points the first year, and second this year.” Small wonder that Kahne, with the grin of a satisfied car owner, added, “We like Joey a lot.”

KKR experienced a few more growing pains on the USAC side of the organization, although Kasey admitted that he expected as much.

“The Outlaw team, they’re going into their third year, and even before that, [crew chief] Justin Adams worked for me for four or five years,” Kahne pointed out. “So we’ve had the same employees there. The USAC team was all new. We had to hire new people, pick the drivers, and get the communication going.”

Veteran wrench Davey Jones led a strong crew in assembling the organization’s Mopar-sponsored USAC machines, steered by teenaged sensations Bacon and Swindell.

In the USAC Sprints, Bacon finished a strong fourth in the points standings and was a frequent presence at the front of the pack. Swindell finished eighth in the points tally. On the USAC Midget side, Swindell finished higher in the standings, sixth to Bacon’s eighth, and recorded a victory in one of USAC’s most prestigious events, the “Night Before the 500” classic held each May at O’Reilly Raceway Park outside Indianapolis.

“Kevin and Brady did a great job for us,” said Kahne. “But when it came to the USAC Sprints and Midgets, I felt like we stepped into a big job. Because the team was in its first year, we had to hire all these new people, build all new cars, and get all our new Mopar engines together.

“We had all that new equipment and two young drivers—really good drivers, but young drivers—so it took a little bit of time [to get up to speed]. But I felt like the [USAC] team did a good job for the first year.”

The 2008 campaign, Kahne figures, will be better still, as his young team continues to jell. With rising stars Bacon and Sweet and battle-tested veteran Saldana returning to the fold, there’s sure to be a lot of victorious text messages flying back and forth throughout the year.

“Brady Bacon and Brad Sweet have a lot of talent, a lot of potential. It’s nice to be able to give them good equipment, and Mopar has given us that opportunity,” said Kahne. And of his World of Outlaws pilot, Kahne said, “Joey Saldana has been around for a long time, and he does an awesome job. He takes care of the cars, and he wins lots of races.

“I’m just really looking forward to ’08. We’ve got Speedway Engines taking care of all our Mopar engines next year, the [USAC] Midgets and Sprints as well as Joey’s motors on the Outlaw series. I think we’re going to do some really good things. It’s going to be our best year yet, for sure.”