Kahne fastest at Las Vegas

The steeper banking in the turns produced higher speeds as expected, and Kahne was happy with the changes.

"I think the track is pretty good," he said. "I like these types of tracks, and it should make for some good racing."

Kahne believes that the test at Las Vegas is the most important of the pre-season, as he feels it gives the best indication of who is going to perform well during the season.

"To me this is the biggest test of the year," he said. "We've done a lot of testing in the off-season, but Vegas means a lot for 23-24 of the races we go to this year.

"It's the test that shows where we're at and shows where other teams are. Daytona is a huge test for the 500, but other than that it doesn't really mean much."

Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards were the next fastest runners, while Tony Stewart was able to get two different cars into the top 10.

Kahne's Evernham Motorsports teammate Scott Riggs had been fastest in the morning session, although he slipped down the order in the afternoon.

The first day of testing was blighted by several crashes, including one for Kahne, and also NASCAR rookie AJ Allmendinger for Toyota.

Toyota's performance was pretty quiet on Monday, although the new manufacturer was able to get one car into the top 10 in both the morning and afternoon sessions, with Dave Blaney and Mike Skinner respectively.