LOUDON, N.H. (AP) — Kasey Kahne led more laps than any driver at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

He would haved traded them all to finish the race.

Kahne’s stellar early performance Sunday collapsed with about 95 laps left when his No. 9 Ford experienced engine trouble. Kahne, who led 110 laps, was running third when his car woes hit and he started sliding back in the field.

Kahne hung in there until the engine finally blew with 65 laps left, pouring oil on the track and bringing out the caution. The caution ended 201 straight laps of green flag racing.

He expected the engine to last.

“When you put it on the track, they’re not supposed to break,” he said. “It’s probably just something small inside that happened, but when we brought it here, we had no idea that it would break. It’s ready. It’s prepared.”

Kahne was already a long shot at making the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. He fell to 20th in the standings and is all but out of contention for a spot in the 12-driver field with nine races left before it’s set.

Bad luck

Juan Pablo Montoya still hasn’t won a Cup race on an oval.

He had a great shot Sunday at New Hampshire Motorspeedway and was a serious threat to win until he got caught up with Jeff Gordon, fell back and was plowed by Reed Sorenson. Sorenson, who was down a lap, got into the rear of Montoya’s No. 42 Chevrolet and sent it into the wall.

Gordon seemingly had half the field angry at him last week at Infineon Raceway for aggressive driving. This time, Montoya accused Gordon of not giving him any room.

“He has it coming one day,” Montoya said.

Burton’s bungle

Jeff Burton led 89 laps and had his first win in nearly two years in his sight when he decided to gamble. He stayed on the track during a caution while all the lead lap cars pitted for fresh tires.

Burton fell behind on his old tires, spun into Kyle Busch and took them both out of contention.

Burton, who finished 12th, accepted responsibility.

“It’s easy to sit back now and say we should have changed tires, but all we had to do was drag two other cars with us and we’d win the race,” Burton said. “Sometimes leading the race is a difficult position to be in.”

Busch mad a great save and finished 11th.

Oh, baby

Aric Almirola was told not to wander anywhere without his cell phone.

He’s on standby for Jimmie Johnson for the next few races. Johnson’s wife, Chandra, is at home and due with their first child in about three weeks.

Almirola took some spins in the No. 48 Chevrolet at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday to prepare for a possible last-minute switch.

“He’s really hoping for the opportunity and I know he’ll do an amazing job given the opportunity,” Johnson said after winning Sunday’s race. “I want to stay in my ride and try to win as many races as I can.”

Almirola has 30 career Cup starts, including four this year. He has only one career top-10 finish.

Johnson knows they’ll have a daughter. He feels the baby is already taking after his wife.

“If she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be late, so I should be fine,” he said to laughter.

“I might not have a place to sleep tonight, just for the record.”

IndyCar back

The IndyCar Series will return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in July 2011.

The open-wheel series will end its 13-year absence from the track July 30-31, 2011. Speedway Motorsports Inc. CEO Bruton Smith and IndyCar Series CEO Randy Bernard made the announcement before Sunday’s NASCAR race.

Bernard said he wanted to add a short oval to the schedule and increase open-wheel’s presence in the Northeast.

Two Sprint Cup races are held on the track every year, including Sunday’s race and one on Sept. 19 that starts the Chase for the championship.

Smith said the addition of the IndyCar race didn’t necessarily mean he was looking to move one Cup race out of New Hampshire to another SMI track like Kentucky Speedway. Smith, though, was noncommittal about keeping both Cup races.

“We couldn’t do that without talking to NASCAR first,” Smith said.

Bernard also wants to move the Indianapolis 500 back to its traditional 11 a.m. start time to give drivers a chance at competing at Indy and that night in NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“I know for a fact there’s a great interest level from some of the top drivers in NASCAR,” Bernard said. “I personally met with quite a few of them at Eldora and they gave me commitments that they’d love to race the 500, if they could.”

He said it was possible the series would add Las Vegas and Quebec to the schedule. The series was looking at 17 or 18 races next season. Next year’s schedule will include a new race in Baltimore.

“We’ll have to cut a couple of events, most likely,” Bernard said.

Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, who had a brief stint in NASCAR, took some hot laps before the green flag dropped.

Rough Roush

All the Roush Fenway Racing drivers had a rough day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Each driver was a lap down at one point and Greg Biffle had the highest finish in 16th.

Matt Kenseth was 17th, David Ragan was 20th and Carl Edwards was 25th.

Roush Fenway hasn’t won a race all season and frustration is building in the Ford camp.

“As a company, we’ve still got to keep working on it,” Ragan said.

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