Defending Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday snaps 22-race winless streak
INDIANAPOLIS – The back-to-basics approach seems to work for Ron Hornaday Jr. and the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team as Hornaday Jr. snapped a 22-race winless streak Friday night, winning the AAA Insurance 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park.
The Kevin Harvick Inc. driver led 129 laps and beat runnerup Kyle Busch by 2.095 seconds for his first victory since Aug. 1, 2009, at Nashville Superspeedway.
Hornaday credited crew chief Ernie Cope — who rejoined the truck team while maintaining his crew chief job with the KHI Nationwide Series group – with helping turn things around for the weekend. Hornaday is expected to have a new crew chief next week at Pocono because Cope will be in Iowa.
"We couldn't do it without Ernie Cope and all these guys on this Chevrolet," Hornaday said. "They worked their guts out, changing the truck after last weekend. It's just a great day. … It took Ernie to come over here and settle everybody down. The guys were getting a little anxious. We know we've got a winning team. We just had to prove it to them."
What did Cope do for Hornaday?
"We just kind of went back to what we call our basic package," Cope said. "We've had people come in and try to do their own thing. I know everyone wants to make an identity for themselves, but it wasn't working. We had to make changes. We just went back to basics here with Ron and let him drive the truck."
Hornaday chipped in, too, trying to change his luck to get back to the winner's circle.
"I changed my tennis shoes, changed all my luck stuff," Hornaday said. "I just [went] back to my basic [of] come to the race track and try to kick butt, and it seems to be working."
The victory was Hornaday's fourth at ORP in 11 starts at the 0.686-mile short track. He led 67 laps in winning the race there in 2009 and has won three of the last four at the facility.
The key moment of the race came on lap 153, when Hornaday squirted past Busch and polesitter Timothy Peters for the lead in turns 3 and 4. Busch was trying to pass Peters on the high side but was blocked by Peters, opening the door for Hornaday.
"That's one the things you've got to remember about this place," Busch said. "You can dive-bomb the bottom really fast and pull a slide job on somebody, and he did it so well that I was still stuck behind the 17 [of Peters], so I couldn't even turn back underneath him and do it back to him in the next corner."
Hornaday said: "Timothy was kind of backing up the corners, so once I got under Kyle, I kind of pinned him back there. We never touched or anything, but that's what you've got to do here at ORP."
Busch finished second in the truck he owns after practicing his Joe Gibbs Racing Sprint Cup car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. ThorSport Racing's Matt Crafton was third, with teammate Johnny Sauter fourth and Turner Motorsports' James Buescher fifth.
Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon was sixth, with Germain Racing's Todd Bodine seventh, Stringer Motorsports' Brad Sweet eighth, Randy Moss Motorsports' David Starr ninth and Red Horse Racing's Peters 10th.
Bodine's series points lead grew to 177 over Billy Ballew Motorsports' Aric Almirola, who finished 31st after being involved in a Lap 96 accident with Narain Karthikeyan and Mario Gosselin.
