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Written by:
Tom Jensen
07/23/2008 - 04:14 PM
Indianapolis, Ind.
Sam Hornish Jr. is a two-time IndyCar Series champ and the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner. (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos
NEW CHALLENGE FOR HORNISH Ohio native Sam Hornish Jr. won one of the most thrilling Indianapolis 500 races ever, passing Marco Andretti a few hundred feet from the start-finish line on the last lap in 2006. This weekend, though, the two-time IndyCar Series champ will have to wrestle with a 3,450-pound stock car for the first time at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Hornish, in his rookie Sprint Cup season with Penske Racing, said he’s up for the challenge.
“I am really looking forward to it,” said Hornish, who is locked into the field for Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard by virtue of being 34th in NASCAR Sprint Cup owner points. “I guess I don’t know what to expect, I don’t have an opportunity to go and test there so there are a lot of unknowns for me. I am really happy I have had the opportunity to not only run there in IndyCar, but now I am getting the opportunity now to get in a stock car. I think that it’s going to be a really good weekend for us. Regardless of the on-track stuff, just the opportunity to be back in Indianapolis should be really fun.
Hornish said the big moment will come for him on Sunday, when we walks to his car in front of more than 200,000 fans waiting for the race to start. “Being on the grid at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was always a special thing for me,” he said. “Having the opportunity to be one of only a handful of drivers who have run both the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400, I am really looking forward to that.”
ANOTHER ROWDY WEEKEND It’ll be business as usual this weekend for NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch, and that means lots of racing for the Rowdy one. Friday night he’ll be at O’Reilly Raceway Park wheeling Billy Ballew’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Toyota Tundra. Saturday, he’ll be back at the ORP short track in a Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR Nationwide Series race and then Sunday it’s the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, the Sprint Cup race that caps off the NASCAR Indianapolis weekend.
“The race at ORP is a not a companion race, exactly, since you have to travel back and forth on the helicopter,” said Busch. “But it’s an easy and fun race to do. We’ll still travel a bit back and forth during the weekend. We’re going to run the truck race on Friday night and the Nationwide Series race on Saturday night. Then Sunday, we are still in town and will run and the Cup race at Indy so that will be a big weekend. You don’t have to go that far. … Racing at ORP is big for us. The whole weekend is big.”
Busch said he much prefers keeping busy to watching others race. “The biggest thing is you want to go out there and race,” he said. “When we’re sitting at home or in the motorhome watching a race that you could be running, it makes me wonder why we’re not there. That’s just not a lot of fun, in my opinion. When you’re a racer, you want to be that guy who’s there.”
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