With uncertain future, Penske’s Sam Hornish still getting adjusted to spoiler
INDIANAPOLIS – Sam Hornish would like to remain a NASCAR driver and at Penske Racing next year but knows it will take a sponsor to keep him on the track.
The three-time Indy Racing League champion is without a sponsor as Mobil 1 is not returning for 2011. Pennzoil is joining the team as the sponsor of Kurt Busch.
“I’d definitely like to be back in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series,” Hornish said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “I’m going to try and do that, but there are definitely things tough with the economy and trying to find full-time sponsors.
“We’re going to do whatever we can do to make that happen and get back in Sprint Cup. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a look around at something else. I think that we have some great opportunities to make that happen.”
The 31-year-old Hornish is 29th in the standings this year, his third full season at the Cup level since migrating over from the Indy Car Series. He went from 35th in 2008 to 28th in 2009 and was eyeing a top-20 finish in points this year.
“We’ve had some ups and downs this year,” Hornish said. “The year started out pretty well for us. The spoiler [added in March] threw us for a loop. Ever since we’ve had the spoiler versus the wing, it seems like we qualify a lot better.
“We’ve been qualifying in the top 12 every weekend, but for whatever reason every time that we start a race, we’re way too tight. It takes us the first-half to three-quarters of the race to get the car back handling again. If we’re lucky enough to stay on the lead lap or keep ourselves in contention to stay on the lead lap we can try and finish in the top 15. You can’t run your races like that. We’re still trying to figure out how to get through that to keep ourselves from having that first half of the race where the car’s way too tight and you can’t do anything but to hold on and keep working on it to make it better. The things that we’ve tried so far haven’t worked.”
Hornish won the Indianapolis 500 in 2006, but Hornish has not had success at the 2.5-mile oval in a stock car. He has finishes of 21st and 37th in his two previous starts.
“A lot of people say that if you run well at Pocono, you should be able to run well here and we ran pretty good up there earlier this year,” said Hornish, who had a season-best 11th at Pocono in June. “I’m just looking forward to getting out there. I always enjoy coming back to the speedway.”
