Full Throttle

Kasey Kahne held off a hard-charging Tony Stewart in the final laps to win a crazy road race at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 in Sonoma, Calif., on Sunday. Kahne’s previous best finish here was a 23rd. His best finish at NASCAR’s other road course, Watkins Glen, was a 14th.

Kahne started the race on the third row and, along with Stewart, was about the only one who stayed in contention near the front of the pack almost all day.

“I can’t believe it,” said Kahne. “I learned how to drive on dirt.”

“I feel just as good as he does,” said The King, clad in his trademark cowboy hat and sunglasses. “It’s great, man. It’s great.”

Kahne felt the pressure of seven restarts, the last one coming on lap 108 of the scheduled 110-lap race.

“It was crazy,” he said. “Stewart’s real good on restarts, but he gave me plenty of room.”

“Kasey never made a mistake, he ran an awesome race,” said Stewart. “It was fun. It’s great to run with this caliber of guys.”

Kahne led the final 38 laps but had to stave off a final charge from Stewart on an overtime finish.

For his part, Marcos Ambrose was happy with his third-place finish.

The Ambrose’s fourth top 10 finish this season, came in a dramatic race where the Australian had several close shaves and a late chance to win after one of the comeback drives of the season.

“I was hot, I was mad, I was happy, I was sad, all together,” Ambrose said after the dramatic race.

“I’m just proud of my team, JTG Daugherty, having trusted me to drive their car, and they took a chance putting me in.

“No one really knew what I was all about, and I just want to thank them.”

Other potential winners were all over the grid all day. Road course ringer Boris Said qualified in the fifth row and also got as high as third before a penalty sent him to the back. Scott Speed lead the race, A. J. Allmendinger also lead. Polesitter Brian Vickers lead for the first 17 laps. Anything could have happened in this race and much did.

The only non-issue of the day was the double-file restarts, which had been much-speculated upon before the race. As it was, all seven restarts came off cleanly, with no spins or wrecks resulting. Trouble came only in the horseshoe-shaped Turn 11 for the first half of the race and later in the sharp right-hand Turn 7, but not for any of the leaders.