Sadler nips Kahne at line

Monday, April 5, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Elliott Sadler won the second Nextel Cup race of his career Sunday, but rookie phenom Kasey Kahne is getting photo finishes down pat.

A loser to Matt Kenseth by 0.010 seconds at Rockingham in February, Kahne finished 0.028 seconds behind Sadler in Sunday's Samsung Radio Shack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

That gives Kahne a place in two of the eight closest finishes since NASCAR implemented electronic scoring in 1993. The Rockingham finish was the fourth-closest in history.

In seven Cup races, Kahne has finished second three times.

The difference Sunday -- besides a half-car length to the finish line -- was the number of laps run under caution late in the race. Seven were required to clean up a three-car wreck, (laps 285-291) and six to remove oil from the track after the engine blew in Jeff Green's No. 43 Dodge.

"It 100 percent benefited me," Sadler said. "I was thinking the more caution laps we can run, the less time (Kahne) has to move up through the field. We knew nobody could run with him, (so) keep running cautions, keep running cautions."

Kahne questioned the need for all the caution laps.

"I didn't see any debris out there half the time," he said. "It's just ridiculous how long they took. That's something NASCAR really needs to look at. They do the one-lap safety rule (to clear the clean-up crew after the track is cleaned) and that's great. The extra eight, 10, 20 laps they run is ridiculous.

"We had the best car all day long and run second. It's disappointing, really."

Sadler, in the No. 38 Ford, had taken the lead on lap 307 when then-leader Jeff Gordon began fading with a battery problem.

But Kahne, whose No. 9 Dodge led 148 laps, clearly had the dominant machine and was making a remarkable charge after briefly falling a lap down on lap 265 when a caution came out as he was pitting.

He was given the "lucky dog pass," rejoining the lead lap in eighth place. The "lucky dog" rule states that the first driver one lap down automatically gets his lap back when a caution comes out.

When the field was slowed to 60 mph for Green's caution from lap 296-301, it stopped Kahne's methodical march through the field.

He finally passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. for second with 20 laps to go and was just a car length from Sadler with five to go.

On a track surrounded by palm trees and rocky desert, Michael Schumacher won the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first Formula One race in the Middle East.

The record six-time champion, who also triumphed in the season's other races in Australia and Malaysia, led from the start at the new $150 million Sakhir circuit. Rubens Barrichello was runner-up for Ferrari's second 1-2 of the season.