CONCORD, N.C. - Kasey Kahne's mood brightened considerably Saturday night. You'll have that in big-time auto racing, especially when you win $1 million and a signature event during the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.

Friday, after a practice session for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race that did not go well, Kahne didn't have a lot to be upbeat about.

"I didn't feel like we were that good as far as what I was looking for in the car," he said. "That was some anger. I don't know. I just get frustrated. I get down.

"Sometimes when you're finishing 10th to 15th, you feel like you're battling the car a little bit more than everybody is battling the car these days, that you're further off than you think you are."

His Saturday started with the Sprint Showdown, a preliminary for drivers not qualified for the main event, and his fifth-place finish wasn't enough to advance. However, a fan vote put Kahne in the field, and he won the 24th running of the all-star race.

That pepped Kahne up.

"Winning tonight, I am already looking forward to next weekend's (Coca-Cola) 600," he said. "It gets me excited to come back to the track next week. It's good for myself and I know it's good for the team and the guys who work on the car.

"They need to win once in a while. They're putting in so much time, so many hours, and it pays off. We won a really big race tonight."

After fans gave Kahne the chance to race, he moved up from the 24th starting spot to seventh by the end of the third 25-lap segment. Team director Kenny Francis made the call to take no tires on the pit stop before the final 25 laps, and that got Kahne back on the track in second place.

The driver took it from there. Kahne, who became the first driver to win the all-star race in a Dodge, took the lead from Denny Hamlin-who also chose not to take tires-on Lap 84 and held on.

Greg Biffle, who easily won the third segment, thought the two-tire change his team did before the final trophy dash would be his ticket to victory. But Biffle finished second, with Matt Kenseth third.

"The longer the race went, the faster our car got," Kahne said. "It was like that until the last lap of the race. It was getting faster and faster."

Kahne won six races in 2006, including the Coca-Cola 600 and the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, but struggled through a winless season in 2007 as team owner Ray Evernham worked to sign George Gillett as a partner and struggled to redefine his role with the team he started.

"I kept saying, 'We weren't that bad, we weren't that bad,"' Evernham said. "We just needed a little bit of momentum and a little something to hold onto and prove that we could do it.

"I think this was a really big night for Gillett Evernham Motorsports. People have to believe. I think the biggest thing we did is we're starting to believe that we can win again."

That notwithstanding, the events of a Saturday night that presented ideal racing weather and an encouragingly large all-star crowd were a lot better for the winning team than for the sport and its fans.

"When you get out front with this car, it's like magic," Kenseth said.

He's right about the value of track position and the clean air the leader gets, but unfortunately that magic consists of making passing all but disappear.

There were zero wrecks in a race hyped each year as a no-holds-barred battle for big bucks. Had there been one during the final 10 laps, perhaps the race would have provided a memorable finish.

Instead what's left for the week ahead are questions about how a race that's four times as long as the one Kahne won Saturday can be kept from being sleep-inducing.