But he knows it's a long shot.

The third-year driver was caught up in Tony Stewart's spinout at Dover International Speedway last weekend, and heads into the race Sunday at Kansas Speedway ninth in the Nextel Cup standings _ 182 points behind leader Jeff Burton.

To get back in the race, Kahne will have to do more than just drive hard and avoid trouble. He'll also need several of his rivals to find their own bad luck.

``I think we're a long ways from winning the championship,'' Kahne said. ``I think that, you know, with the right breaks and the performance that we're capable of doing, we can get right back in it.''

Kahne was more upbeat about his championship chances this week than he was in the immediate aftermath of the Dover incident, which caused him to declare, ``No more championship.''

But the short history of NASCAR's postseason-style championship format would suggest that Kahne's first reaction was the correct one.

Yes, Kurt Busch had a 42nd-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway during his championship run in 2004. But Busch held the points lead going into that race and didn't lose it afterward.

And last year, Stewart's worst finish in the final 10 races was 25th. That's why Stewart expressed what seemed to be legitimate remorse after his spinout took Kahne out.

``Wrecking is one thing, but when you take out somebody that's in the Chase, you've screwed up a whole team's year by one race,'' Stewart said after the race. ``And of all people, it's one of my good friends.''

Stewart and Kahne have tangled on the track in the past, but share similar open-wheel short track racing roots _ and the same agent.

Stewart knows it's unlikely that Kahne can rebound to win the title.

``Kasey can go out and win the rest of the races and not win the championship still,'' Stewart said. ``It's not about who's going to win the championship based on good finishes, it's going to be about guys who just don't have a bad day. That's all this Chase boils down to.''

Kahne said he doesn't harbour any resentment toward Stewart, who called Kahne this week.

``He just feels bad that, you know, that I was there when he spun out,'' Kahne said. ``I mean, that's just a racing thing.''

Kahne also received encouragement from team owner Ray Evernham.

``He just said, `Nothing you could do about that. That was just racing, things happen, and disappointing, but, you know, we're going to still give it a shot and do everything we can to get back in the middle of this thing,''' Kahne said. ``He was actually pretty good about it. He said that we've got a shot, so we can do whatever we can do, get faster, have our heads down and try not to have any more mistakes. We pretty much have to have a flawless year this year from here on out.''

And he has to have other drivers get caught up in their own bad luck.

``If people have bad luck and we run well, we're going to get in position,'' Kahne said. ``It's just up in the air, you have no idea, we just do our best and hope it all works out.''

One thing in Kahne's favour is his stellar record at intermediate-length tracks this season.

All five of Kahne's victories this year have come at medium-banked tracks of 1.5 or 2 miles: Atlanta, Texas, Charlotte, Michigan and California.

And while Kahne's best finish in two races at Kansas is 12th, he has shown speed there and won the Busch Series race at Kansas Speedway last year.

``(Kansas is) similar to some of the other tracks we've won at this year, and I don't see why we can't run up front and make the right adjustments and do the right thing in the race and put ourselves in the right spot at the end to win,'' Kahne said.

Kahne struggled at Chicagoland Speedway in July, a track nearly identical to Kansas. But he said the team has found some speed secrets that should improve his performance this weekend.

``We're looking forward to it,'' Kahne said. ``We know, we feel like we know what went wrong at Chicago, why we didn't have a car that could run up in the top five. We're pretty sure we're going to Kansas the right way, (suspension) setup-wise. I think we should be pretty good.''

And with the exception of next week's race at Talladega, one of NASCAR's fastest and most dangerous tracks, Kahne figures he ``can run in the top five, for sure'' at the rest of the races remaining on the schedule.

``I think if there's any team that can do it right now, it's ours,'' Kahne said. ``We've been good. Our team has done an awesome job all year. We've had a great season, but we've had some tough breaks, too. That's racing. Things happen and we've had a bit of both this year. So I feel like we can definitely win some more races, lead laps, get right back in the middle of the thing. I don't think we're out.''