James Finch and Kasey Kahne in 2011? Maybe so....but nothing's official yet

 Tony Stewart (14) at the head of the Sonoma pack last summer finds the track pretty crowded (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
 

 By Mike Mulhern
 mikemulhern.net

 SONOMA, Calif.
  So, despite denials/no-comments from the Rick Hendrick camp itself, James Finch, the veteran team owner and Florida construction magnate who has at times fielded cars for Hendrick, is apparently indeed making a pitch to run Kasey Kahne next season for Hendrick.
     That would certainly not be unexpected. After all Finch had Hendrick engines and engineering last spring when he helped Brad Keselowski to victory lane in that wild finish with Carl Edwards at Talladega.
    However Kahne's sponsor for 2011 is still up in the air. Hendrick announced in April that Kahne would be leaving the Ford camp, again, this time to join Hendrick's Chevy operation.
    But Hendrick and Kahne have hemmed and hawed since then about any details.
    Jeff Gordon himself has been playing the sponsorship game, with long-time sponsor DuPont apparently backing off and cutting back to about 12 races next season. Wal-Mart is one potential sponsor being bandied about for Gordon.
    In fact Finch will be here for Sunday's 350 with Hendrick sponsorship and engineering too, and Formula 1's Jan Magnuson at the wheel.
    Finch says he's been trying to sell his Nationwide team for nearly two months, but with no takers. Ryan Newman has an eight-race deal to run Finch's Nationwide cars the rest of this season.

    Meanwhile, NASCAR's TV situation is a bit curious at the moment.
    While the action generally has been hot and heavy on the track, a long pre-race rain delay and then two hours of less than thrilling racing marred TNT's Pocono debut. And Sunday's Michigan 400 was a ho-hum Denny Hamlin runaway.
    After the furious finish at Pocono, and in light of some hard-racing on those double-file restarts, Tony Stewart angrily said he planned to make the highlights films with some hard driving of his own. And maybe that will come here, where Stewart's road course talents shine.
    Stewart has an impressive road course record with seven wins and four seconds in his 22 career starts at Sonoma and Watkins Glen.
    Meanwhile, NASCAR's own numbers – TV ratings -- haven't been very impressive lately, and TV executives point to what they say is a worrisome trend – the continuing loss of young male viewers (18-34).
    Fox' NASCAR ratings this spring were down more than 15 percent from two years ago. And Fox says its own 13-race figures for 18-34 males this spring were off almost 30 percent from last year....and that's on top of a more than 20 percent decline overall in 18-34 males in 2009.
   Maybe if Stewart makes some SportsCenter highlights here, that might help things.
   "I just like the road courses," Stewart says, looking for his third straight top-five run Sunday, after a slow start to the year.
    "I've always liked Sonoma; it's really a driver's track – It's tough to make your car drive perfect all day. It's going to slide around, and you're going to struggle for grip, and that's what makes it so fun: You have to do the work behind the steering wheel."
    And have some good luck, because pit strategy is surprisingly important.
    "A lot can happen at Sonoma – You've got to be patient all day," Stewart says. "You get a lot of cautions, and a lot of guys end up beating and banging on each other. The cars look like they've been to a race at Martinsville.
    "Save that car for the last 20 laps, because that's the critical time.
    "Do what you have to do to get through the first 90 laps...but those last 20 are the ones when you really have to go. And you need your car to be in one piece to make it happen."
   Kasey Kahne was last summer's big surprise here, matching Stewart lap after lap and beating him.
   "I was surprised, because I don't remember him in the past being a big road course racer," Stewart said. "I don't remember ever having to race him at a road course.
   "But, man, he was good.
    "We ran the whole race together; we seemed to be on the same pit sequence.
    "We were matching each other lap for lap.
     "At the end, it became a shootout between us."
      And those double-file restarts, new to the sport, and an interesting twist to the game, which has aggravated drivers but delighted fans?
      Double-file restarts are tricky here, because it's really just a one-groove track up hill from the start-finish line.
      With Kahne the leader, he got the choice of lanes. "He kept picking the right-side lane on the restarts, which was very smart," Stewart said.
      "He made the most of it, because it got us hung on the outside.
      "We kept the pressure on him and tried to force him into a mistake, and he never made it.
     "He was very composed on all those restarts; we couldn't get him to bobble."
     And Kahne, this year in a Ford, not a Dodge, has looked really strong this spring. He finished second Sunday at Michigan.

       

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