Ford raised Kahne and is glad to have him back

RICHMOND, Va. -- Kasey Kahne, the top driver in the Richard Petty Motorsports stable, admitted he was as surprised as anyone at the news this week that RPM will be switching manufacturers at the end of this Cup season.

Officials from RPM announced Thursday that the organization will be making the switch from Dodge to Ford while merging with Yates Racing. Kahne currently drives the No. 9 Dodge that sits sixth in the points standings heading into Saturday's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway -- the final race before the top 12 drivers are locked into the Chase for the final 10 races of the season.

Merger mania

Richard Petty Motorsports will merge operations with Yates Racing and switch to Ford in the 2010 season.

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• Audio: King moving to Ford
• Audio: Petty, Yates merging

Thus Kahne finds himself in a bit of a strange place. He's poised to race for a championship in a Dodge, which he has driven his entire six-year Cup career.

But he knows his long-term future now appears to be in a Ford -- which he hasn't driven since being employed by Robert Yates Racing and Akins Motorsports in the Busch Series, now Nationwide, in 2002 and 2003, respectively. The irony there is that the association ended badly for him and for Ford, resulting in the manufacturer suing Kahne for breach of contract.

Kahne rose from the USAC open-wheel ranks to NASCAR with the support of Ford -- but left Ford and Akins, which was associated with Robert Yates Racing, because Kahne claimed he was not moved up to the Cup Series in a timely manner. When he began driving a Dodge part time for what was then Evernham Motorsports toward the end of the 2003 season in the Cup Series, he still had three years left on his contract with Ford.

"It wasn't really about me. It was about building Richard Petty Motorsports," Kahne said of Thursday's merger and manufacturer switch. "When I left Ford and we went through that suit, I wasn't a big fan -- and they weren't a big fan of me. But time heals, and I think some of those people are gone that caused all that. They have new people there. Ford is really excited, and I think we can work through things and figure out how to get by and use those guys and work with those guys to become a better race team." (Continued)