Steele Puts a Stop to Kahne’s Plan

Kasey Kahne hoped to continue a new tradition by improving his second-place finish last year and win the 61st Annual United States Auto Club Turkey Night Grand Prix on Thursday night, just like last year’s winner, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart.

But Tampa’s Dave Steele had other ideas.

Steele, grabbing the lead from Kahne on Lap 22, earned the upset and the $6,000 purse in front of a near-capacity crowd of 6,110 at Irwindale Speedway.

“We were just a scared rabbit on that last lap,” said the victorious Steele, who also won the very first USAC Midget race in the track’s history. “I couldn’t tell if I was pulling away or not, but I could tell I was moving pretty fast.”

Kahne started on the pole and held off a series of challenges until Steele passed him on the bottom of Turn 4.

“I was a little bit better running on the high end of the track early on,” a philosophical Kahne said. “But after he [Steele] caught me, I think I started to run faster down below, but I just couldn’t reel him in.”

It took an accident involving another rookie driver, Travis Miniea, and P.J. Jones, the son of two-time Turkey Night winner Parnelli Jones, on Lap 45 to reset the field and give Kahne his best opportunity to close the gap on Steele, who had as much as a two-second lead on Kahne at the halfway point.

But with every restart, the Chrysler Mopar engine in Steele’s new Beast chassis roared away from Kahne’s Ed Pink-powered Beast, leaving Kahne to watch helplessly from second place, then third, when J.J. Yeley passed him on the final restart on lap 95.

Going into the Western Sprint Car 30-lap main, Tony Hunt held a slim 28-point lead on his nearest challenger, Jeff Gardner. Hunt needed 14 laps to go from his sixth-place start to take the lead from Troy Cline.

Once in the lead, Hunt held off Bud Kaeding for the final 16 laps to win, while Gardner finished third, with Kline and Casey Mears, in just his second Sprint Car race, rounding out the top five.

“On these longer races, we have to be conservative, but we knew we had the tires behind us to go,” Hunt said. “Any time you can win and run in front of your opponent creates momentum going into the next race.”

Hunt still holds a slim 36-point lead over Gardner, 936-900, going into Saturday’s season finale in Las Vegas.