Chicagoland Speedway, crew chief Keith Rodden was replaced with Darian Grubb after many lackluster finishes. Right away, Kahne was one of the fastest cars at Loudon, but bad luck plagued the 5 team in the Playoffs and had an early playoff exit. At the end of the season, he ended up with a career low in Top 10's with six and tied his career low of Top 5's with three. He also led 41 laps in 2017, his second career lowest after the aforementioned 2016 season where he didn't lead a lap at all. Kahne announced he would drive the 95 Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in 2018, replacing Michael McDowell. Leavine Family Racing (2018) On September 19, 2017, Kahne announced he would be driving the No. 95 for Leavine Family Racing in 2018. In the offseason, Leavine announced he would pair up with Hendrick Motorsports team engineer Travis Mack who previously substituted for Greg Ives when he Crew Chiefed for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to his best run in 2017. Kahne finished 10th in the All Star race after going four laps down from a wreck. After a very disappointing first half, that included his best run of 17th place on three occasions and a firing of crew chief Travis Mack for lead engineer John Leonard. He led a season high 17 laps and scored the most points at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona, on the final restart, Kahne tried to make a move to the lead but stalled out due to not getting help. He fell back in line and finished fourth, a season best for him, tying the team's best finish as well as moving up three spots in the standings to 25th. On August 16, 2018, Kahne stated his intention to step away from full-time competition at the end of the year. On September 6, 2018, after heat exhaustion from the race before at Darlington, Kahne announced that he would sit out the 2018 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis and be replaced by Regan Smith, which would be the first race Kahne had not raced in since he began his full time career in the Cup Series. Following the Brickyard race it was announced that Kahne would continue to sit out for the next three races with Smith still filling in. On October 9, 2018, he announced on Twitter that he will sit out for the