On August 22, 1997, Kasey Kahne made his World of Outlaws debut at the Grays Harbor Raceway. From there, slowly and steadily, he rose up the ranks in the World of Outlaws (and NASCAR) and established himself as one of the most sought-after drivers.

He even had a successful career as a team owner (Kasey Kahne Racing) and went on to win six championships as one. But a World of Outlaws win as a driver eluded him for almost three decades, a wait that was finally over on Friday.

Kahne has 228 World of Outlaws career starts to his name, and his win at the Grays Harbor Raceway was the first time he won a race. He was driving the Macri Motorsports #39M car and picked up the win with 0.581 seconds to spare over Sheldon Haudenschild.

“It’s crazy," Kahne said. "I couldn’t believe this would happen this weekend. Two weeks ago, I was still building my own cars to get prepared to hopefully race them later this year.

"Nick Macri and their whole family. Man, this whole Macri Motorsports team. Joe Mooney, he’s exceptional on the wrenches. He worked at KKR (Kasey Kahne Racing), and he’s done so much more since then with Anthony. Bob, Doug, the whole team. This is a really good team.”

Kyle Larson, co-founder of the High Limit Racing sprint car series, also congratulated him.

“Yeah, that was awesome,” Larson said. “I was flying here, so I didn’t get to watch the race live, but I’d gotten texts from multiple people when he won and landed in time to watch his interview and just see how excited everybody was for him… the fans, himself, the team."

Thanks to the victory, Kahne became the third racing driver from Washington to win a World of Outlaws feature after Travis Jacobsen and Jason Solwold. The win is also the team's 10th win in total, and first with Kahne, after Macri fell ill recently.

Kasey Kahne filled in for Anthony Macri in Macri Motorsports

Macri Motorsports decided to replace an injured Anthony Macri with Kasey Kahne after the former's compression fractures of the T4 and T5 vertebrae in a crash at Williams Grove in April this year.

"With Anthony Macri continuing to keep his health and healing process as a priority, he is unable to return behind the wheel at this time,” the team said in a statement. “Macri Motorsports has decided to temporarily fill the seat of the 39M to keep the crew fresh and support our local tracks in the midst of some big events.”

Kasey Kahne will continue to race in the #39 M car for the next five races, making it a 10-race schedule since his return.

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason