Kahne looks to recapture the magic

LAS VEGAS -- After Kasey Kahne stunned NASCAR’s top series in 2006 with a series-high six wins in only his third full season, the sport could only wonder how strong he would be in 2007.

Kahne, a soft-spoken native of Enumclaw, Wash., whose wide-eyed boyish looks have made him a NASCAR heartthrob, had the same high expectations.

But in the third race of 2007, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kahne -- who started on the pole -- crashed into the wall when his No. 9 Dodge blew a tire. He finished 35th.

Looking back, “that was kind of the year at that point,” Kahne recalled.

Indeed, the rest of the season was misery for Kahne, 27, as his Gillett Evernham Motorsports team couldn’t find the formula to give Kahne enough speed.

He finished 19th in points, had only one top-five finish in 36 races and missed the Chase for the Cup title playoff.

And in a fitting end to his dreary year, Kahne got into a scuffle with a security guard while trying to get to his motor coach during the weekend of the final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

But Kahne is trying to bounce back, and he returns to Las Vegas for the UAW-Dodge 400 on Sunday after respectable finishes in the first two races this year -- seventh in the Daytona 500 and ninth last weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Qualifying is scheduled today for Sunday’s race on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval, a race reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson has won the last three years.

“We felt pretty good about the test [last month] we had in California and Las Vegas,” Kahne said. “We learned a lot and hopefully that works to our favor.”

Regardless, “I try to look at the bright side, try to make things right,” he said. “Even last year when we were struggling, going into every Sunday, I thought, ‘Hey, we can run good today.’ ”

But he didn’t. And as his season deteriorated, team co-owner Ray Evernham said Kahne wasn’t at fault.

Rather, the team struggled to keep up -- both in terms of aerodynamics and horsepower -- with such winning teams as Hendrick Motorsports.

The problem applied to both its conventional race cars and the new Car of Tomorrow, which NASCAR began phasing in last year.

But with that car now the only car in the series, Kahne and Evernham are more optimistic because the team can concentrate on just the one Dodge.

“Things are definitely different this year with Evernham as far as the structure and the plan that’s set there to make the cars right, to make them handle for a while, not just for a week,” Kahne said.

Kahne also has a new main sponsor in Budweiser beer, which moved from Dale Earnhardt Jr. when Earnhardt moved to Hendrick this season.

Kahne’s rivals could empathize with his struggle.

“If the car isn’t fast enough to make the Chase, then you’re not going to make it,” said Juan Pablo Montoya.

“Look at Kasey Kahne. Did he forget how to drive? No, he drove better than he did the year before. But the car wasn’t fast enough.”

Kahne started racing when he was 14 in both midget and sprint cars. He won the USAC Midget Series championship in 2000.

Two years later he landed a ride in NASCAR’s second-tier circuit, now called the Nationwide Series, and earned his first win in the season finale at Homestead-Miami.

After Evernham promoted him to the Cup level in 2004, he was strong from the start. Kahne had 13 top-five finishes that season and was named rookie of the year.

He scored his initial Cup win, at Richmond, Va., in 2005 and then led the series with his six victories in 2006. He also made the Chase in 2006 -- and finished eighth -- while earning $7.8 million in race winnings.

In the process, the relatively shy Kahne became one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers, aided by his TV commercials for Allstate Insurance that feature adoring women excited at the prospect of seeing him. A new batch of the ads is scheduled to air during Sunday’s race.

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james.peltz@latimes.com