LOUDON, N.H. – Kasey Kahne led more laps than any driver at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

He would have traded them all to finish the race. Kahne’s stellar early performance Sunday collapsed with about 95 laps left when his No. 9 Ford experienced engine trouble. Kahne, who led 110 laps, was running third when his car woes hit and he started sliding back.

Kahne hung in there until the engine finally blew with 65 laps left, pouring oil on the track and bringing out the caution. The caution ended 201 straight laps of green flag racing.

“When you put it on the track, they’re not supposed to break,” he said. “It’s probably just something small inside that happened, but when we brought it here, we had no idea that it would break.”

Kahne was already a long shot at making the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. He fell to 20th in the standings and is all but out of contention for a spot in the 12-driver field with nine races left before it’s set.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA still hasn’t won a Cup race on an oval. He had a great shot Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and was a serious threat to win until he got caught up with Jeff Gordon, fell back and was plowed into by Reed Sorenson. Sorenson, who was down a lap, got into the rear of Montoya’s No. 42 Chevrolet and sent it into the wall.

Gordon seemingly had half the field angry at him last week at Infineon Raceway for aggressive driving. This time, Montoya accused Gordon of not giving him any room.

“He has it coming one day,” Montoya said.

JEFF BURTON led 89 laps and had his first win in nearly two years in sight when he decided to gamble. He stayed on the track during a caution while all the lead lap cars pitted for fresh tires.

Burton fell behind on his old tires, spun into Kyle Busch and took them both out of contention. Burton, who finished 12th, accepted responsibility.

“It’s easy to sit back now and say we should have changed tires, but all we had to do was drag two other cars with us and we’d win the race,” Burton said. “Sometimes leading the race is a difficult position to be in.”

Busch made a great save and finished 11th.

AN IRL RACE will be run at the New Hampshire track July 31, 2011. Speedway Motorsports Inc. CEO Bruton Smith and IndyCar Series CEO Randy Bernard made the official announcement before Sunday’s race.

 

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