Kahne and Dodge miss Chase spots

Kahne needed a strong finish and some bad luck for Clint Bowyer and David Ragan at Richmond in order to be able to move up into the top-twelve in the standings. However at no point during the race he was in that position and a 19th place finish was actually far from what he needed.

"We needed to win," Kahne said. "We needed to do a little bit better than what we did. We tried hard, we gave it our best shot, the team did a great job all day. I drove as hard as we possibly could, and ended up where we ended up.

"We'll keep working. We'll keep getting better and hopefully be even more prepared and better next season."

The Gillett Evernham driver said his team made good strategy calls and consistently improved the car throughout the race but just ran out of time to show that with a good finish.

"I felt like I drove everything I could all day," said Kahne. "Tried to take chances. Tried to be smart at the same time and get what we could get. Four tyres out of the track, push getting in, slide the back getting off, and then you'd slide in and slide off and it was kind of all over but we got the car better.

"(Crew chief) Kenny (Francis) made some good calls for where it was and we improved it a little bit, and then just track position hurt us all day."

Kahne also blamed poor pitstops due to his pit stall selection. However he admitted he didn't have enough pace to finish ahead of Chase position rival Bowyer in the race.

"I was trapped in between a couple Roush cars on pit road and it didn't matter where I came in, I was trapped," he said. "So it was a long day in the pits. We came out close to last about every single time it seemed like. At least we came out after both of those two cars every time.

"That helped but either way we were not going to beat Clint so, good try and that was it."

For the first time since the Chase was introduced in 2004, Dodge will be left out of the championship battle.

Three Dodge drivers have won races this year, including Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman, but they were eventually the only race-winners not to make the top 12 run-off.