Ron Hornaday outlasts red-hot Kyle Busch for first win at Texas
By Tim Tuttle - Contributing writer
Thursday, June 19, 2008
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Kyle Busch began his quest to win three races in three consecutive days in three states with the Sam’s Town 400. After qualifying for the Pocono 500, Busch flew from Pennsylvania to Texas and got into Billy Ballew Motorsports’ Toyota. He didn’t have the benefit of practice or qualifying, a double whammy that forced him to start at the back and delivered an uncooperative truck.
Busch manhandled his truck toward the front and reached second position for a green-white-checkered finish. Only Ron Hornaday stood between him and a trip to victory lane.
“You have no idea what was going through my mind,” Hornaday said. “I’m going for a championship. Kyle is young and dumb. He’s going for three wins in three states and has nothing to lose. He probably could have lifted up my truck on the start and driven me dirty, but he drove me clean.”
Busch never had a chance against the man known as the master of the restart.
“I spun my tires a little bit and wasn’t able to get alongside Ron,” Busch said.
Hornaday didn’t leave Busch an opening on the restart with two laps remaining, taking away the inside approaching the green and leading unchallenged into Turn 1 on the 1.5-mile track. It was the decisive move of the race. Hornaday wasn’t seriously challenged again and won by 0.283 second, about two truck lengths.
“I drove my heart out,” Hornaday said. “I wanted to win this race bad. I won Texas, woo-who. But it was a team win. [Crew chief] Rick [Ren] figured out what to do to hold Kyle off and [Johnny] Benson [off].”
What Ren figured out particularly was changing air pressure in the tires on the team’s final pit stop on lap 114. Hornaday led 140 of 172 laps, which was five more than the scheduled 167. He led the final 57 laps of the race.
Hornaday had long coveted a win at Texas Motor Speedway after failing to gain one in his 10 previous starts at the track. He puts this victory in a special category among his record 35 wins in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
“It is the biggest win right now,” he said. “I tell you other than Daytona [where he’s never won], Texas is a race that I’ve wanted to win. I’ve always wanted to win [at Charlotte] and we did that last year.”
Meanwhile, Busch didn’t like the way his Toyota, driven by J.R. Norris in practice and qualifying (17th), handled from the start.
“It was terrible, absolute junk at the beginning,” Busch said. “J.R. and the guys did what they could, but nobody drives like I do and it’s hard to find a setup like I drive. We shot ourselves in the foot. It was probably an 11th-place truck and we worked on it to make it an eighth-place truck. We were sideways there in the middle of the runs, absolutely barely hanging on.”
Busch made the trek to Texas because he loves to drive and win races, but he’s also trying to help Ballew win the owners championship and find a sponsor. He didn’t have any regrets about making the trip and finishing second.
“Not one bit,” Busch said. “We finished second for Billy Ballew. That’s what matters the most. I know we lost points to Hornaday, but we’ll take a good finish when we can. Here, we lost a little, but we gained on a lot of other guys.”
Hornaday moved into the points lead, by 45 over ThorSport Racing’s Matt Crafton. His Kevin Harvick Inc. team holds a 34-point lead over Ballew in the owner points.
Benson had a solid run to take third in Bill Davis Racing’s Toyota. Jack Sprague, Hornaday’s teammate, was fourth.
“It was a good run for us,” said Sprague, who has yet to earn a win this season, “but, damn it, I want to win.”
Germain Racing’s Todd Bodine thought he made the most of a difficult situation by finishing fifth.
“We were loose all night,” Bodine said. ‘It was a new truck. It was a totally different body and totally different suspension. We learned a lot. To struggle all day and finish fifth, it’s a good deal.”
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