Short-track Sam: Penske Racing's Hornish Jr. posts another top-10 finish
Penske Racing driver Sam Hornish Jr. finished eighth in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
LOUDON, N.H. – Penske Racing's Sam Hornish Jr. continued his prowess on NASCAR's shorter tracks, finishing eighth in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Hornish finished ninth at the 1-mile Phoenix International Raceway, sixth at the .75-mile Richmond International Raceway and 13th at the 1-mile Dover International Speedway this season. Now, he's added the top-10 at the 1.058-mile New Hampshire oval to his credit.
Like most of the field, Hornish left the track wishing the race had gone the distance instead of being halted after 273 of the planned 301 laps.
"It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get to finish the race out," he said. "I’m real proud of all the guys working on the car. … That’s what we need to continue doing … going out there and getting top-fives and top-10s. Then you can win races. We’ll keep working away at it."
Hornish sees a lot of improvement in his team this season, improvement evidenced by his 25th position in the standings a year after battling to stay in a locked-in position in the top 35.
"We didn’t do well at short tracks last year, but this year they’ve been a lot better for us," Hornish said. "I think getting track time to know what the cars need to do has been the key. We’ll see what happens at Bristol and Martinsville when we go back.
"Those weren’t too stellar for us earlier this year. I think we’re going to have some real good days coming up here. That’s what we need to keep doing. We had a pretty darn good point’s day today.”
Crew chief Travis Geisler said the team did a good job of capitalizing on its opportunities Sunday – something that aided Hornish in getting this third top-10 finish of the season.
"We started 26th, but felt we could have started a little better had we been able to qualify on Friday," he said. "Sam marched his way up there and really, we just kind of kept methodically working our way up. We never had anything go wrong. We were able to capitalize on having a good car and Sam made some great moves on restarts.
"I think without the rain we were definitely a top-five car," Geisler said. "We were running fourth there when everybody pitted. Some of those guys had nothing to lose and stayed out. To come home with another top-10, three short-track top-10s in a row, and that was probably going to be a top-five which would have been our best, it was an awesome day for the AAA/Mobil 1 Dodge. Sam did a good job."
