News

FORT WORTH, Texas (October 31, 2008) – Sam Hornish Jr., driver of the Penske Racing No. 77 Penske Truck Rental Dodge Charger, captured the 21st starting position for the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

In qualifying on Friday afternoon, Hornish posted a fast lap time of 28.980 seconds at a speed of 186.335 miles per hour securing the Penske Truck Rental team the 21st starting position for the 501-mile race. Hornish was the fastest of those required to qualify on time and the top-qualifying rookie for Sunday’s race.

“During practice today we were really good in race set up from the beginning,” Hornish said. “We were losing speed during our qualifying runs so we tried the same set-up as the No. 2 car. That really didn’t help us much so we switched back to our original set-up while making a few minor changes.

“I’m happy with our qualifying run and actually think that there was a little bit more left in the race car. I’m just really happy that we got the Penske Truck Rental Dodge in the field  and feel that we’re going to have a much better racecar than even what we qualified.”

Coverage of the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway will air live on the ABC television network on Sunday, November 2 beginning at 3 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on PRN at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Driver:  Sam Hornish Jr.
Position: 21
Time:  28.980
Speed: 186.335     

Pole:  Jeff Gordon
Time:  28.652 
Speed: 188.469  

Penske Racing Teammates:
31. Ryan Newman
40. Kurt Busch