Charlotte Update: Kasey Kahne strong early on - MotorSportsTalk

Kasey Kahne and the entire Hendrick Motorsports posse have had a robust first half in tonight’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Pole sitter Jeff Gordon led the first 26 laps of the night and went to pit road as the leader following an early yellow. But a decision to go with four tires caused him to drop back to eighth for the restart, while Kasey Kahne was able to ascend to the front for the Lap 30 restart.

However, Gordon didn’t falter as badly as Kyle Busch, who was forced to make a second stop under the caution because of loose lug nuts on his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He was forced to restart from 35th spot, but quickly began made up ground when the race went back to green.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. quickly took the point from his teammate Kahne, but a piece of trash on the grille triggered a rise in temperatures for Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevy. On Lap 44, Kahne re-took the lead, giving Earnhardt a chance to draft him in an attempt to knock the debris off.

But he wasn’t quite able to do the job until he had conceded both second and third to Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson respectively before the Lap 50 mark; Earnhardt finally got rid of the debris after running up toward Johnson’s rear bumper.

Truex’s stop on Lap 69 began a cycle of green flag service for the field, which ended with Kahne getting the lead back, Truex in second, Earnhardt in third, Johnson in fourth and Gordon in fifth.

An engine failure for Mark Martin brought the yellow out again shortly after Lap 80, triggering stops for drivers such as Truex, Kevin Harvick, Kyle and Kurt Busch, and Brad Keselowski – who was forced to return after he left with the jack still attached to his car.

Earnhardt once again popped ahead of Kahne off the restart at Lap 91. Also taking advantage was Kyle Busch, who had already climbed back up to 14th after his ill-fated first stop but then vaulted an additional eight positions off the restart to sixth.

Kahne, though, would not be shook off by Earnhardt, and on Lap 96, he passed him again for P1. The Hendrick foursome of Kahne, Johnson, Earnhardt and Gordon stayed up front, running 1-2-3-4 up to Lap 126 when Kyle Busch passed Gordon for fourth as the latter was slowing down to get to the pits.

Another round of stops under green flag conditions were beginning at that point, and Kahne would give up the lead to pit on Lap 130 – only to get it back on Lap 135 at the end of the cycle. Kyle Busch rose to second behind Kahne and ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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