During the last 100 laps of the Southern 500 last weekend, Kasey Kahne’s body had already been pushed beyond its limit.
A rapid, extreme dehydration issue he’d been dealing with over the last year had returned in a big way, and Kahne found himself struggling to even keep his eyes open.
His heart rate was high and out of control. Kahne could barely drive or focus; his few thoughts were about trying to lay back in the corners and just make laps, hoping his body would respond.
Kahne finished the race — he still managed to get 24th place — then got out of the car and lay down on the pit wall as medical personnel arrived. But his heart rate was still so sky high, the doctor couldn’t get a measurement on his pulse.
He threw up all the way to the infield care center — right in front of fans. Once there, his arms, chest and neck were so cramped, Kahne indicated he had to be held down to get IVs in both arms.
“It was just a complete mess,” he said.
So if you’re wondering why Kahne won’t be racing this weekend at the Brickyard 400, that’s a sample of the reason. The fact it could happen again means there’s a chance he might not be in a Cup race again anytime soon — depending on what doctors can figure out.
It’s not as if Kahne is an out-of-shape person or hadn’t been getting enough fluids prior to the race. He’s actually in peak physical condition and spent four days hydrating and eating cleanly prior to Darlington — particularly conscious of what could happen.
That’s because this isn’t a new problem. Fans saw a flash of it last year after Kahne won at the Brickyard, but the extreme dehydration has only gotten worse since then. He struggled at Kentucky and Bristol this season as well, and Darlington was the worst yet.
Essentially, Kahne said his body sweats so much that he can’t keep the fluids in. With his slender frame, it’s different from an NFL offensive lineman with a lot of body fat. Ultimately, Kahne can’t keep up with the hydration fast enough and after a couple hours can’t even drink any more fluids without throwing up.
From that point on, his body starts to shut down — particularly on hot days with a high dew point.
Kahne is now working with doctors to try and “find a way to put together a full race and not hurt my body internally at end of these races,” he said.
What puzzles him is he’s had the same body type for all of his time in NASCAR, but the dehydration issue has only started to creep in over the last two seasons. He can only figure it’s age, since nothing else has changed.
“I can’t control the temperature of my body and my heart rate,” he said. “Once it gets to that point, there’s nothing I can do until I can get out of the car.”
It’s different with sprint car races or shorter races, because the dehydration effects don’t begin until Kahne has been sitting in a hot car with little air flow for a couple hours straight. He can do a five-mile run or 15-mile bike ride with no problems and feel great.
But a three- or four-hour Cup race? More and more, those are starting to become more dangerous for his health.
Kahne acknowledged the ongoing problem played a factor in his decision to retire from Cup racing after this season.
As for the immediate future, he’s already eyeing a hot forecast in Las Vegas next week. He’s hoping one of the three doctors he saw this week can help him come up with a solution to help keep his body from getting dangerously depleted.
“It definitely worries me,” he said. “But if we can come up with solution to stay hydrated prior to race and feel comfortable with it, I’ll be in Las Vegas.”
Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on their career path. Up next: David Groseclose, director of tire systems and unified testing for NASCAR.
Can you tell us what you do now and what your job entails?
My title is director of tire systems and unified testing, so I have a lot to do with the tires, with Goodyear — I’m kind of a liaison between Goodyear and NASCAR. I go to all the tire tests. I’m the NASCAR representative there, along with Jerry Kaproth who handles all the logistics for the testing. We also do the friction testing with our new friction testing machine we just purchased last year. We also do track surface scanning — that’s part of my job that’s not really in my title, but we’re gradually going toward that sort of thing. We’re getting more scientific with the data we collect; we’ve got more qualitative stuff. It’s really good for Goodyear, because they’re getting all this data and it can help them make the tires better every weekend.
So pretty much anything related to the tires or track surface, especially in regard to each other, falls under your purview.
That’s right. Tires, wheels, any of the testing we do — rookie testing for Xfinity and Trucks, organizational tests for the Cup Series, the tire tests, new organizational testing for new organizations that are just starting to try and build up their speed. That helps them a lot.
How did this all start for you? We’re sitting at Bristol Motor Speedway right now and it sounds like you have quite a history in this area.
My first race here was when I was 5 years old. My dad likes to say I went to sleep during my first race, and that’s the truth — they’ve got a picture of me sleeping in my Harry Gant outfit. I was a big Harry Gant fan. So I went to sleep during my first race, but from there on out, I paid attention to them a lot and really enjoyed the racing.
We would come out here on the Tuesday before the race and my dad would park the camper. Even though we lived 10 miles away, we would still camp out here. He would park the camper on Tuesday. The rest of us would come on Thursday. We’d go to school from the camper on Friday, then we’d come back and we’d spend all weekend. We had a bunch of friends we camped with at the track and had a good time with.
David Groseclose, pictured here as a young race fan, stands next to a Goodyear tire buster around 1985. He went on to work with tires in NASCAR. (Courtesy David Groseclose)
My dad had a block of 32 tickets we had for a long time. I still have the tickets — not all of them, we’re down to six tickets now — but we’re still coming to the race.
So I always loved racing and wanted to get into racing. I kind of took a different path than a lot of people you’ve interviewed — a lot of people start out at the bottom and work their way up in motorsports. But I really started out as just a fan. I came into it later in my life — I’ve been in it five years now.
I went to high school here at Sullivan Central (in Blountville, Tenn.). I met my wife in high school. Then after high school, I went to Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tenn. Got a degree in mechanical engineering.
At the time, what are you thinking you wanted to do with that? It sounds like racing wasn’t on your radar yet as a career.
I knew eventually I could get into racing with something like that, but it wasn’t a focal point for me. I wanted to get into the automotive industry, and with a mechanical engineering degree, it’s pretty diverse, so you can get get into that industry.
While I was in college, I did a co-op for Bridgestone. That was dealing with big truck tires. I’d go on tire surveys, I’d make a lot of PowerPoint presentations looking at tire sections. That kind of got me started in the tire part of it.
After college, I went into the Navy for seven years. I was in the nuclear power program as a nuclear engineer; I was on a surface destroyer for two and a half years and a carrier for two and a half years with school in between.
David Groseclose and his wife, Susan, aboard the USS Harry Truman in 2006. (Courtesy David Groseclose)
I kind of got away from (tires) there. But after I got out of the Navy in 2007, I was looking at jobs in the automotive area because nuclear power wasn’t something I wanted to pursue any further.
So I was looking at jobs, applying for jobs. I actually applied for a generic job listing and I didn’t know it at the time, but it was with Bridgestone. I applied for it, got the interview and when I got the interview, I found out it was with Bridgestone — which was pretty much perfect for me, because I’d already worked for them before and knew a little about tires.
So I got that job. I worked in Wilson, North Carolina for seven years at the tire plant there for passenger tires.
And then in March of 2013, I was on Jayski or NASCAR.com or something and saw a listing for a position with NASCAR. I clicked on it, and it was for a tire engineer. I was like, “Well, that’s pretty neat.”
I showed my wife, and she was like, “If you don’t apply for that job, I’m going to divorce you.” (Laughs) Because I’d been a fan all this time. With this (Bristol) race, starting from the time I was five years old, I can probably count on one hand the number of races I’ve missed — and most of those were when I was in the Navy.
So I applied for it and didn’t hear anything for awhile and kind of forgot about it. It was September before I heard back from anybody. Someone called me from NASCAR and said, “Hey, this is so-and-so from NASCAR.” I said, “Who?!” They said, “We want to get a phone interview with you.” And it was with Brett Bodine.
David Groseclose (boy with glasses on the right) stands with Brett Bodine in 1986. Bodine would later become Groseclose’s boss at NASCAR. (Courtesy David Groseclose)
You must have been pinching yourself.
Yeah. So I did an interview with Brett Bodine and they liked me enough that they brought me in for another interview with Brett and Gene Stefanyshyn. So I ended up getting the job, worked under Brett for a couple years (as a tire engineer). Got promoted a couple times and now I’m in charge of tires and testing for NASCAR.
So you’re definitely living the dream, it sounds like.
Definitely living the dream. A lot of times, I don’t feel like I have a job. Going to tests, talking to drivers, talking to crew chiefs, it’s a lot of fun. It really is. And the testing part of it is pretty good, too, because it’s a lot more laid back than the race weekends. You can talk to everybody and they’re not on a time crunch or anything really and it’s really good to get to know everybody.
Once you get into the grind of it and in the industry, it’s a lot different. How have you been able to hang onto the enjoyment of it? Because it’s different as a fan versus working in it.
As a fan, you obviously don’t see every aspect of it. I don’t see every aspect of it either, because I’m not in every meeting all the time.
But really, it’s just looking back and trying to see why I got into it. Because I love it. I love the competition part of it, I love the camaraderie of it. It’s kind of a small group, a small community, and I love being part of it.
It can be a grind, but I don’t go to all the races. It’s not like I’m there every single weekend. So that’s a part my wife likes, too, because I’m home on a lot of the weekends and just traveling during the week to the tests.
David Groseclose, right, with Davey Allison. (Courtesy David Groseclose)
You mentioned being in the Navy for seven years and I’m sure during some of those deployments, you’re out at sea for a long time. How did that experience translate to the rest of your career in NASCAR?
I’d say just dealing with people. On the carrier, I was in charge of a division of 25 guys. We worked on the diesel generators that are backup for the nuclear reactor if it goes down. So working with people, knowing how to talk to people, having that experience leading people. I don’t lead a whole lot of people here — I’ve just got Jerry under me right now — but that’s a big part of it.
You’re on Twitter, so sometimes you see the negative at times. I’m sure it’s frustrating for you with your background as a fan, you want the same things these people on Twitter want. Is there anything you wish people understood about your job a bit better or that you all want the same things they do?
Yeah, I think that’s true. I think NASCAR wants the same thing the fans do: We want good racing, we want close competition. As a fan, you don’t see every little part that goes on. You may think, “This would be great if we did this,” but you don’t see all the other stuff behind the scenes that can cause that not to be a good idea.
You also have to look at cost for the teams, driver feedback, team feedback, owner feedback, everything. That’s why we’ve got all these councils we have now, because everybody needs to be involved when you’re making a decision like that. When you’re talking about packages or tires — having Goodyear involved in that, and getting driver feedback and team feedback on that, and then also looking at the data and saying, “Well, is this the best tire?” You can’t always go solely on driver feedback and you can’t always go solely on data. You’ve got to go somewhere in between.
David Groseclose with his family, including three of his four sons (the youngest is not old enough to come to a race yet). (Courtesy David Groseclose)
In the wake of Furniture Row Racing’s announcement it will shut down after this season, there was a telling quote team president Joe Garone gave to the Denver Post.
“There needs to be a runway when a partner leaves,” Garone said, referring to the loss of a sponsor. “… Had 5-Hour (Energy) not quit, we’d still be racing. That’s the truth. They did (quit) and we weren’t able to replace them.”
Though Tuesday’s news was a shock in many ways — after all, when was the last time the defending championship team announced it was ceasing operations? — it also exposed a situation many NASCAR teams are facing.
What happens when a major, big-money sponsor leaves in 2018? In an era where the cost of running a championship-caliber car has wildly outpaced new sponsorship revenue, teams have built themselves a house of cards to try and keep up with their rivals.
A decade ago, it was fantastic for NASCAR and its teams when major corporations or brands wanted to throw $25 million a year at race cars. Many of them did, and NASCAR was flourishing at the same time.
But companies aren’t spending that way these days, and they haven’t been for awhile now. So when a high-paying sponsor exits the sport — even if it’s “only” $10 million compared to the budgets in the spending heyday — that can be a fatal blow to a race team.
The reality is exactly what Garone said: There’s no runway if something goes wrong. If a major sponsor leaves a team, the chances of finding a replacement are about the same as landing a passenger plane on a cliff without going over the edge.
In that case, there are two options: Spend way less money — which means no more wins or competitive finishes — or call it a day and go home. That is, of course, unless the team owner is a super rich dude with disposable income.
That used to be Visser, but after burning through tens of millions and finally getting sponsorship to fund the team, he couldn’t go back. Not after winning a championship.
There are more teams than not in Furniture Row’s position — the teams who rely on sponsorship to survive and don’t have a billionaire to fall back on. As such, those teams could find themselves in the same situation: One sponsor decides to leave, and that could be it.
I’m not trying to be an alarmist here, but here’s an example: What if FedEx pulls out of racing at some point? Do you think the No. 11 car can find sponsorship at the same level? Maybe, but…
Look, I understand being jolted by the Furniture Row news. It’s a serious situation. But if this is really a wake-up call for you, then you either haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in NASCAR or you’ve been in a bit of denial about it.
Either way, nothing is going to change at this point. I highly doubt teams are going to agree to some sort of spending cap, and NASCAR can’t take costs out of the sport fast enough. So this is the reality.
Where does that leave things now?
For one, questions about where Martin Truex Jr. and Cole Pearn will land next season — while interesting and relevant — don’t speak to the big picture.
After all, if there are no race teams, there’s nowhere to race. The current team model in NASCAR is broken — and has been for some time now — and everyone can only hope the Furniture Row news is an isolated case due to unique circumstances rather than the start of a frightening trend.
The series of 12 Questions interviews continues this week with Daniel Suarez of Joe Gibbs Racing. Suarez must win at Indianapolis on Sunday in order to earn a playoff bid for this season. These interviews are recorded as a podcast but are also transcribed for those who prefer to read.
1. How often do you have dreams about racing?
First of all, I don’t have dreams very often for whatever reason. When I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping. But (it happens) when I’m thinking too much about something — like Pocono (when he had a shot to win), for example. After Pocono, I spent days thinking about what I could have done different on that restart, and one of those nights I was dreaming about it.
So for whatever reason when you start thinking a lot about something, you just happen to dream something related.
2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?
I think it does. At least it does for me. I feel like as a driver, we race so often, so there’s always a comeback.
My mom makes fun of me that I don’t remember a lot of things she says to me, but when it comes to racing, I remember exactly everything. Like what the car was doing or who hit me or who was too aggressive toward me. So eventually, it turns around. We always remember that.
I feel like it’s always good if you did something wrong to apologize and move on. That’s the way I like to do things. It shows respect. But there’s always a line — sometimes the apology is not enough. So you still have that payback in the future.
3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?
For me, the biggest compliment I’ve had is I have a good personality. That’s what I like to hear, that I have a good personality and I’m smiling and stuff like that. Because at the end of the day, that’s not related to racing — that’s something on the side of it.
4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host?
You know, it would be awesome to have a race car driver like Fernando Alonso or somebody on that level so they can get involved with this sport. I’ve had some friends who have come to NASCAR (and raced), like Nelson Piquet — he’s been racing everything and he knows how difficult stock car racing is. So it would be awesome to have Fernando. He’s a great guy and he’s very competitive. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday someone brings him to the racetrack and he gets that itch to try it out.
5. In an effort to show this is a health conscious sport, NASCAR decides to offer the No. 1 pit stall for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for one month. Would you do it?
No, man. (Laughs) I love chicken too much. I think I had chicken like how many times yesterday? Two times? No, that’s wrong — three times! And my sushi. Yeah, I think that’s enough to qualify well and still be close to Pit Stall 1.
6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I’ve picked a random race from your career and you have to tell me where you finished. This is the NASCAR Mexico Series — the 2012 race at Aguascalientes. Do you happen to remember that one at all?
Let me think. I was always fast at Aguascalientes. Maybe second or third?
You finished second. You started on the pole, led 44 laps and Ruben Rovelo won the race.
I remember part of it. I was leading the race in the last restart and I missed a shift and I stacked up the whole line. He wasn’t even on the front row.
I had an agreement with second place that I was going to restart on the outside and he was going to let me in. And the guy who was on the inside, he just held to the agreement too long — because I missed a shift and he was waiting for me! We passed the start/finish line and Ruben made it three-wide. I went to third, and then I passed second place and at the checkered I was right on the bumper (of the winner).
7. Who is the best rapper alive?
Maybe Eminem. I don’t follow rap a lot, but I think he’s funny.
8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?
Punchable? Like to go hit them?
It could either be you want to punch them in the face or their face just looks like…
… Like it could take it? (Laughs) I think I can hit Ryan Newman and he wouldn’t even feel it. (Laughs)
9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your crew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.
OK, LeBron is the crew chief. Tom Hanks can be the motorhome driver. I personally think the spotter is extremely important, but if it’s an easy race, you can do without it. So we’ll put Taylor there.
10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?
Oh man. You ask your PR guy maybe 30 minutes before. For some reason, all the PR guys know as a driver, every time after driver intros, you’re looking for a bathroom. Because you have to do it. It seems to me every time I ask, “Hey, Tyler (Overstreet) — where is the nearest bathroom?” He knows it. But most of the time, we have to wait a little bit because there’s a line of drivers. Everyone is there.
11. NASCAR decides they miss the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and want a replacement. How much money would they have to offer for you to backflip off your car following your next win?
I don’t think they would have to pay me anything, man. I would love to do it. I’d just have to train for it. If you can guarantee me I won’t get hurt training for it, I would do it.
I honestly think I’d be able to get it done, but it takes training. More than being strong, it takes technique. And to develop that technique, you make mistakes. I can’t afford to get hurt. So that’s why I say if you can guarantee me I wouldn’t get hurt, I would do it. That would be a lot of fun.
Plus, Carl Edwards is a friend and a great driver. Obviously, nobody is able to do what he did after the race because after the race, you are tired. So to do that after a race, that means you are in pretty good shape. So he was pretty damn strong.
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. Last week’s was with Brad Sweet. His question for you was: Have you ever driven much on dirt, and if you did want to race on dirt, what car and what track would you want to race?
That’s a good question. In Mexico, we don’t have one racetrack that’s a dirt oval. All the dirt we have is for motorcycles. But in the west (part) of Mexico, in Chihuahua, they do have some dirt racing — but it’s with old cars. It’s more for fun, not professional racing. That’s the only kind of racing I’ve heard of with cars on dirt in Mexico.
So my background is just so different, that’s not something I have done. I’ve never been on dirt in my life. The first time I got invited to a dirt race, five or six years ago, I showed up with a white shirt — you could tell I was 100 percent a rookie. I wish one day I could try it — maybe a sprint car, because those things are fast. I saw your video after you did a two-seater and I was impressed you were impacted like that. So maybe a sprint car would be a lot of fun.
As for a racetrack? Maybe Eldora would be good.
Do you have a question I might be able to ask for the next interview? It will be with an IndyCar.
Yeah, actually. When I grew up with my family, I was watching more IndyCar than NASCAR. That’s because in my hometown (Monterrey, Mexico), IndyCar — actually Champ Car — used to go there every year. So I used to go there when I was 13 or 14 years old with my father and watch. That was a lot of fun to see the noise and the power of those cars. I enjoyed that a lot.
So my question would be: How much do they enjoy road-course racing versus ovals? And one day, would they be interested to try NASCAR either on an oval or road course?
Previous 12 Questions interviews with Daniel Suarez:
If Kyle Larson’s final pit stop were a mere tenth of a second quicker, he probably would have beaten Brad Keselowski off pit road and won the Southern 500. Larson’s No. 42 car had looked untouchable all night. He swept the first two stages and led 284 of the 367 laps at Darlington. But when it came down to the key moment of the race, it was Keselowski’s crew that turned a lightning-fast stop instead of Larson’s. Once again, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver came away with a frustrating ending to what could have been a perfect night. For two consecutive races, he’s settled for something short of what he might’ve deserved. It’s not that his pit crew was bad during the race; it just didn’t have the extra bit of speed necessary to top Keselowski’s group. “We didn’t get beat off pit road by much, but it was enough,” Larson said. “Being the control car at any racetrack is huge, and we just didn’t have that. … Just lost a little bit of our edge there for the restart and I was pretty loose on that last run and lost a lot of ground there.” Although he didn’t dominate Bristol two weeks ago, he was the pole winner and finished second to Kurt Busch. For the final 13 laps of that race, he pushed as hard as he could to catch the Stewart-Haas Racing car. The Bristol night race is an event Larson has said is the one he wants to win more than anything in NASCAR — other than maybe the Daytona 500. It was agonizing for him to not win after going to victory lane the day before in the Bristol Xfinity Series race.
Now to come up short again after dominating one of NASCAR’s most historic races is just another punch in the gut. But Larson sees the silver lining: He gained two playoff points and earned 54 of a possible 60 points overall. That’s the type of performance that can help him in a few weeks when the competition intensifies during the postseason. “We got some stage points, which is good for the playoffs,” he said. “Disappointed, but happy about the car we brought.” So was there a difference for the No. 2 team during the race? Well, actually there was.
Winning crew chief Paul Wolfe admitted the pit crew did something new, but he wouldn’t reveal the secret. “If you watch closely, you’ll probably see a difference, but I’m not going to talk about it a lot,” he said. “We’ve had an up-and-down year on pit road, and we continue to try and work on that and get better. We did some different things tonight, and we’re still learning — a good bit of confidence for those guys going into the playoffs.” Keselowski’s Ford was a top-five car all night, and Team Penske finished 1-2, so you can’t take that away from Joey Logano and his race-winning teammate. Penske has been a ‘B’ team compared to the Big Three of Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. most of the year, but it found something in the setups this weekend that no one else could replicate. “I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my pit crew,” Keselowski said. “We were running second and that last stop they nailed it and got us out in the lead. I thought Kyle was really good, and he was flat-out flying. … In 2015, we led a bunch of laps and lost it on the last pit stop, and today my team won it on the last pit stop.” Does Keselowski know what his team did to help him beat Larson off pit lane? “I’m not privy to that information, so I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “But I’ll take it, whatever it was.”
In this double podcast, Pacific Northwest race fans help me break down the Darlington race after a watch party and IndyCar journalist Christopher DeHarde analyzes the Portland Grand Prix.
With a large crowd of enthusiastic race fans in Oregon for today’s Portland Grand Prix — the first major-league race in the Pacific Northwest in over a decade — some of you have been asking a great question: Should NASCAR race at Portland as well?
I’m admittedly biased because I live in Portland. And obviously, I have a heavy interest in NASCAR since that’s where I spend most of my time. So you might think I’d be waving my arms and saying, “HEY NASCAR! CHECK THIS PLACE OUT!”
But actually, Idon’t think it would be a good idea for NASCAR to visit Portland International Raceway.
The track itself could probably put on a good show. It’s very short for a road course (1.96 miles) and has two long straightaways, which would favor NASCAR-style racing.
But the facility would have to get some major upgrades to meet the typical NASCAR standards.
There are no garages at Portland. Lower series like Xfinity and Trucks occasionally work from behind their haulers or under awnings, but Cup never does.
But I don’t even think Portland would be great for a Truck race (even though the series previously raced here).
Pit road, from what I can tell, isn’t long enough for a full NASCAR field and doesn’t have much room to expand. The safety setup — concrete walls, short runoff areas and low fences — look like a track which last hosted a major race more than a decade ago (which is actually the case here). And there’s hardly any on-site parking for fans — not to mention a lack of permanent bathroom/concessions structures.
The track is run by the City of Portland’s parks department, and it’s basically like racing through a nature preserve. It’s beautiful. And the asphalt surface itself is in fantastic shape.
But there’s just not a lot of the infrastructure NASCAR officials, teams, fans and media are accustomed to.
It works better for IndyCar, which races at several street circuits and has more experience showing up to places and setting up what they need to put on a successful race (hospitality chalets, race control, etc.).
That said, this event is shaping up to be a mega hit for IndyCar, so it’s understandable if NASCAR would want to race at an established circuit like Portland. But more of an investment would be required before that happens.
