Hornish Battles Handling Issues at Dover
September 29, 2013
THE RACE
5-Hour Energy 200 Benefitting Living Beyond Breast Cancer (1-mile oval, Dover, Del.)
September 28, 2013
THE RESULTS
The No. 12 Snap-on Ford Mustang
Driven By Sam Hornish Jr.
Start Position: 2
Finish Position: 17
Status: Running
Current Driver's Points Position: 1
THE RACE REVIEW
· Sam Hornish Jr. started from the second position as he earned his eighth front row starting position of the 2013 season.
· As the race began Hornish dropped back to third-place as a result of starting on the inside lane.
· Over the opening laps, the veteran driver reported that his Snap-on Ford was too free all around.
· A lap 35 caution flag set-up the first stop of the day allowing the Penske Racing pit crew to change right side tires in effort to improve the handling of the No. 12 Mustang.
· The racing action resumed at lap 40 with Hornish scored 14th as numerous competitors stayed on track.
· Now running mid-pack, Hornish reported that the Snap-on Ford was incredibly free all around the track. He would fall back as low as 18th and lose a lap to the leaders.
· At lap 117, the team made a green-flag stop – once again making adjustments to the No. 12 machine. During this stop NASCAR judged that Hornish was too fast entering the pits and subsequently had to serve a pass-through penalty. This resulted in the Penske Ford losing an additional lap.
· Hornish would run as low as 23rd, but fought his way back up to 17th by the end of the race.
· With the result Hornish and the No. 12 Penske Ford maintain the lead in the Nationwide Series standings with a four-point advantage over Austin Dillon.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
SAM HORNISH JR.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH AUSTIN FROM HERE ON OUT?
“If we would have lived up to our potential today I would feel a lot better about it, but I know that we’ve got five races to go and we go to some tracks that I really like – Texas, Phoenix, Miami, Charlotte –so I’m really excited about what we’ve got. I also know that it’s real easy to have a day like this where you make one bad call on pit road and then there’s not another caution the entire rest of the race. That’s the tough part about running the Nationwide races is that you sometimes have to take chances that you wouldn’t like to because you’re trying to stay ahead knowing you’ve only got 200 laps versus 400 tomorrow and then you get yourself in trouble because you don’t just put the four tires on there, you don’t just give up a little extra speed on pit road. We all could have done it a little bit better today. None of us are going to hang our heads about it. We all know what the issues were and we’ll talk about it because whining about it now isn’t going to help us get our points back. Keeping our heads down and going out there and having a good race next weekend at Kansas is what’s going to continue to build the points lead back up.”
5-Hour Energy 200 Benefitting Living Beyond Breast Cancer (1-mile oval, Dover, Del.)
September 28, 2013
THE RESULTS
The No. 12 Snap-on Ford Mustang
Driven By Sam Hornish Jr.
Start Position: 2
Finish Position: 17
Status: Running
Current Driver's Points Position: 1
THE RACE REVIEW
· Sam Hornish Jr. started from the second position as he earned his eighth front row starting position of the 2013 season.
· As the race began Hornish dropped back to third-place as a result of starting on the inside lane.
· Over the opening laps, the veteran driver reported that his Snap-on Ford was too free all around.
· A lap 35 caution flag set-up the first stop of the day allowing the Penske Racing pit crew to change right side tires in effort to improve the handling of the No. 12 Mustang.
· The racing action resumed at lap 40 with Hornish scored 14th as numerous competitors stayed on track.
· Now running mid-pack, Hornish reported that the Snap-on Ford was incredibly free all around the track. He would fall back as low as 18th and lose a lap to the leaders.
· At lap 117, the team made a green-flag stop – once again making adjustments to the No. 12 machine. During this stop NASCAR judged that Hornish was too fast entering the pits and subsequently had to serve a pass-through penalty. This resulted in the Penske Ford losing an additional lap.
· Hornish would run as low as 23rd, but fought his way back up to 17th by the end of the race.
· With the result Hornish and the No. 12 Penske Ford maintain the lead in the Nationwide Series standings with a four-point advantage over Austin Dillon.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
SAM HORNISH JR.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH AUSTIN FROM HERE ON OUT?
“If we would have lived up to our potential today I would feel a lot better about it, but I know that we’ve got five races to go and we go to some tracks that I really like – Texas, Phoenix, Miami, Charlotte –so I’m really excited about what we’ve got. I also know that it’s real easy to have a day like this where you make one bad call on pit road and then there’s not another caution the entire rest of the race. That’s the tough part about running the Nationwide races is that you sometimes have to take chances that you wouldn’t like to because you’re trying to stay ahead knowing you’ve only got 200 laps versus 400 tomorrow and then you get yourself in trouble because you don’t just put the four tires on there, you don’t just give up a little extra speed on pit road. We all could have done it a little bit better today. None of us are going to hang our heads about it. We all know what the issues were and we’ll talk about it because whining about it now isn’t going to help us get our points back. Keeping our heads down and going out there and having a good race next weekend at Kansas is what’s going to continue to build the points lead back up.”