<p>Kasey Kahne buried his head against his battered car while his crew worked furiously to put it back together.</p><p>It was no use. One dumb mistake at Atlanta Motor Speedway likely cost Kahne any chance of making a run at his first NASCAR Nextel Cup championship.</p><p>Kahne, who had the fastest car in practice leading up to Sunday's Bass Pro Shops 500, had overcome a rough start to work his way up to fourth when his race suddenly ended. Ignoring the advice of his spotter, the driver of the No. 9 Dodge drifted high going into turn one and got tangled up with David Stremme, taking them both out.</p><p>"You want to hurt yourself," a disconsolate Kahne said. "The race is over and we had a shot at winning. That's all I wanted to do. I was just upset and frustrated with myself. There's no one else you can blame."</p><p>He was eighth in the standings but had hopes of cutting into Matt Kenseth's 99-point advantage. Not anymore. The 38th-place finish cost Kahne another spot in the standings and left him 210 points behind the leader, surely far too much ground to make up in the final three races of the season.</p><p>"It's going to be tough to win it now unless everybody dropped out the last three races," Kahne said.</p><p>Stremme was furious at Kahne, confronting him in the garage. The two had an animated exchange alongside the No. 9 car before the rookie stormed back to his hauler.</p><p>"I don't know what he was doing, but we both ended up in the wall," said Stremme, who finished 39th. "I couldn't do nothing. I understand he was faster, and I moved up on the top side to let him by, but it was pretty blatant what happened."</p><p>Kahne acknowledged that it was all his fault. The spotter told him that Stremme was running on the outside, but the advice went unheeded.</p><p>"I thought I had cleared him for some reason, but I totally knew he was there," Kahne said. "I don't know. Just a brain fade. We lost a lot of points. We lost a great finish, maybe even a win for us today. These are races you've got to step up and perform under pressure and do everything you need to do, and we didn't do that today."</p><p>Actually, the team had nothing to do with it. This one totally fell on Kahne.</p><p>"The track was coming to us. Everything was working for the No. 9, and I mean everything," he said. "It was all my fault."</p><p>___</p><p>HERE COMES THE SUN: Jeff Gordon would normally get upset about someone plowing into the back of his No. 24 Chevrolet.</p><p>Jamie McMurray did just that Sunday, but Gordon had no complaints.</p><p>Gordon knew there was an extenuating _ if avoidable _ circumstance that caused the wreck: NASCAR's television-influenced decision to start the race late in the afternoon, making it almost impossible to see when the blinding sun was setting behind turn one.</p><p>When Gordon cut a tire and began slowing on lap 170, McMurray didn't see him until it was too late.</p><p>"We should not be racing at this track and several other tracks at the time of day we are. It's extremely dangerous," Gordon said.</p><p>"Most times, I would really get on somebody for running into the back of you when you're that far ahead. But I couldn't see going into turn one. I'm sure he couldn't, either. His spotter told him (that Gordon was slowing), but he had no idea where it was because it was totally blind going in there."</p><p>McMurray, who didn't make the Chase for the Championship, confirmed that he was helpless when Gordon slowed at such a vulnerable spot on the track.</p><p>"The sun is in your eyes so bad getting into turn one that by the time my spotter said something, I could already see the 24 and I wasn't 10 feet from him," McMurray said. "There's not a whole lot you can do. To be honest, I barely got to the brake pedal before I saw him."</p><p>Gordon, who also has a brush with Joe Nemechek early in the race, fought back to finish sixth. He moved up from ninth to sixth in the points, but it will be very difficult to make up a 146-point gap on leader Matt Kenseth with just three races left.</p><p>"We had an incredible car," Gordon said. "I'm really proud of all the guys bouncing back the way we had to. I can't really point fingers at anything or anybody."</p><p>Does Gordon plan to complain to NASCAR about its start times?</p><p>"It doesn't do any good," he said. "I've tried it several times."</p><p>___</p><p>MARTIN WRECKS: Mark Martin crawled from his battered machine, shrugged his shoulders and waved to the crowd. He's used to coming up short in the championship race.</p><p>Martin's hopes of winning his first Nextel Cup title in what could be his final year of full-time racing effectively ended when got caught in a big wreck on a restart with just 15 laps to go.</p><p>Two cars got tangled up heading into turn one, Sterling Marlin bounced into Martin, and the No. 6 Ford went careening into the outside wall. It came to a stop on the inside apron, where Martin got a big cheer when he crawled out of the car.</p><p>Martin, a four-time series runner-up but never a champion, settled for a 36th-place finish that left him eighth in the points, with a daunting 201-deficit to leader Matt Kenseth.</p><p>"I don't know what happened," Martin said. "The 14 car (Marlin) just veered up in front of me, so I don't know. We were running good."</p><p>Martin didn't seem too upset about is misfortune, even though he had hoped to end his full-time career as a champion. Next year, he's leaving Roush Racing to run a limited schedule with a less-established team.</p><p>"I'm just happy that we're running good," he said. "We're fighting and scrapping for it. We've got three more races and we'll keep doing what we're doing."</p><p>___</p><p>ELLIOTT'S DAY: Bill Elliott now has a grandstand named after him at his home track, but he didn't give the fans sitting in it much to cheer about Sunday.</p><p>In his 57th career start at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Elliott battled engine problems before heading to the garage without making it halfway through the race. He called it a day after just 146 laps and finished 41st in the 43-car field.</p><p>"It got worse and worse, and we ended up having to quit," said Elliott, a native of Dawsonville who won the 1988 season championship. "We were hoping for a caution to get it straightened out, but it never worked out."</p><p>To commemorate his three decades of racing at the track south of Atlanta, the East Turn Grandstand was renamed the Elliott Grandstand on Friday.</p><p>Elliott has six wins, five poles and 20 top-10 finishes during his career at Atlanta Motor Speedway.</p><p>"It is only fitting that we give the Elliott name a permanent home at our facility where he has had so much success," said Ed Clark, the track's president and general manager.</p><p>Elliott is no longer a full-time driver on the Nextel Cup circuit. This was his eighth race of the year; he hasn't finished higher than 23rd.</p>
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