The campaign moves to Delaware.
Sam Hornish Jr., a three-time Indy Racing League champion, will attempt to qualify today at Dover International Speedway for his first Nextel Cup Series event.According to Penske Racing Prez Tim Cindric, Hornish was his own worst enemy last Friday. From IndyStar.com:
Hornish attempted to qualify for the Nextel Cup race at New Hampshire last weekend, but came up just short.
“I’m really looking forward to Dover, especially after what happened last weekend,” Hornish said. “I have a better idea now, and hopefully we won’t let it happen again. My goal is to make the race and get as much seat time as possible.”(MORE from Auto Racing Daily)
"He went last (in qualifying) at New Hampshire, and he knew what he had to do time-wise to make it," Cindric said. "Then he took it too easy and under-drove the car for one of the few times in his life. He was a couple of tenths (of a second) off his time in practice, which is a lot.An update will be provided on Sam's progress later in the day because, well, the IndyCar series is on a six-month coffee break.
UPDATE: Another DNQ, so for the second week in a row Sam will be free on Sunday. He had the 42nd fastest time in qualification, but because certain teams are guaranteed qualification Sam did not make the grid.
Somewhere Ryan Briscoe is weeping.
and the long, long wait for next May begins....
ReplyDeleteOK, I can't help it.... I can't stand NAPCAR but I'm going to root for Sam to qualify. I guess that also means I'm going to have to root for Helio to win Dancing With The Stars....
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "NASCAR" you refer too all the the time? You may have to change your site to My Name is NIRL. The truth is, going so slow probably threw Sam off.
ReplyDeleteHaha, don't forget Scott Speed in an ARCA car. The sad thing is he's still making more money there than in F1.
ReplyDeleteAs the Duke said on my podcast, "from Krug to Milwaukee's Best."
Here's a newsflash: It's not that easy to drive these cars fast. The differences between an IndyCar and a N-word car are pretty huge. Gonna need to do more than just show up to put one on the grid. Sorry to break it to you.
ReplyDeleteLike pressdog said, even though Caution-Car is never going to be as fast as most open wheel cars, driving them is not as easy as it looks. (Even though I personally know a former winner of the Daytona 500 who once stated a year or two ago, (I paraphrase) that "Boris Said's crew chief could have qualified the car as well."
ReplyDeleteHey, Daytona is a restrictor plate race after all... Too funny, but I digress.)
And its even more challenging if your crew is having trouble getting the car tweeked in height & suspension wise. There is clearly much less down force than with an IRL car. Because of body shape and area, also much more aerodynamically challenging to drive in traffic. The four ring (and lucrative) circus that is Nascar continues to mess with tire compounds and aero packages. All of this in the interest of making the cars slower and therefore"safer", soon they will also be slathering the track surface in 90 weight hypoid oil, and require teams to employ playboy bunnies as pit crew members too (All in the interest of safety of course) .... Then there is the so called car of tomorrow that took three giant steps back aerodynamically. I think Sam is an above average open wheel driver (on ovals).... But when it comes to the subtleties of turning any direction but left, Sam will never be the driver that a guy like "road course specialist" Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves for instance, or even a Marco Andretti is. What the heck does that have to do with driving tin tops you ask???? It has everything to do with seat of the pants, set up sense and hand to eye touch that is required to get these cars to the edge of competition .... I do not think that 'Sam he am' posesses those attributes, or if he does, he does not possess them in a highly enough evolved state to cope with the nuance that is Snorecar.... It does however surprise me that AJ Almendinger has had as much trouble as he has had with qualifying.... But I believe that to have more to do with the team than with him personally. Myself, much like Mario, sure would love to see AJ go to AGR.