Andrew Ravens · MotorBiscuit Thu, November 5, 2026 at 12:20 AM UTC · 3 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kasey Kahne says the three future NASCAR Hall of Famers he joined at Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 were at the top of their games but also "kind of on the back side."
Kahne moved to Hendrick in 2012, taking over the No. 5 Chevrolet from Mark Martin. He joined Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"They were all at the top of their games, also kind of on the back side," Kahne said on the Stacking Pennies podcast .
"Jeff left or retired pretty quickly from when I was there. Then Dale, Jimmie. Like, it was all, you know, Jimmie didn't when I was there, but yeah, they all kind of had been doing it a long time, a ton of experience, looked at things, you know, differently than what I did, and then sometimes, similar," he added.
Kahne said the sport was also changing as he arrived. Teams were getting more data on how each driver drove the car.
"And at that same time, we were starting to get a lot more data and kind of understand how each one of us were driving. And you had that at test, but then it started coming into the races a little bit, the simulator stuff started coming, and then kind of we all basically had moved on. But yeah, it was a neat lineup there," Kahne said.
Johnson had won five straight titles from 2006 to 2010 and added a sixth in 2013 and a seventh in 2016. He later tried other forms of motorsports , including IndyCar and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Gordon retired from full-time racing after 2015 with 93 wins and four championships.
Kahne said the two drove very differently, and he leaned more toward Johnson's style.
"I always felt like Jimmie and Jeff drove pretty differently. I thought Jimmie, to me, I always just thought he carried a lot of speed. He was really good at carrying speed into the corner, carrying throttle through the corner," Kahne said.
"I kind of drove more like that, to where Jeff was more aggressive and then off and then aggressive, and I'd put him more kind of like a Kevin Harvick style of driving. It was neat to be teammates with those guys," he added.
Kahne's first Hendrick season produced the best points finish of his Cup career. He won the Coca-Cola 600 and the summer race at New Hampshire and finished fourth in the standings.
He won at Bristol and Pocono in 2013 and at Atlanta in 2014. His last Hendrick win came at the 2017 Brickyard 400, where he held off Brad Keselowski in overtime to end a 102-race winless streak.
Kahne left Hendrick after 2017 and later stepped away from Cup. He has spent most of the years since racing sprint cars, with occasional NASCAR starts.
Now he is coming back. Kahne will return to full-time NASCAR competition in 2027, driving Spire Motorsports ' No. 77 Chevrolet in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Source: Sports
