Sam Hornish Jr.

Sam Hornish Jr.
Achievements	2001, 2002, 2006 IndyCar Series Champion
NASCAR Cup Series career
Car no., team	77 - Penske Racing
2008 position	35th
Best finish	35th - 2008 (Nextel Cup)
First race	2007 Checker Auto Parts 500 Presented by Pennzoil (Phoenix)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 3 0
NASCAR Xfinity Series career
Car no., team	12 - Penske Racing
Best finish	51st - 2008 (Nationwide Series)
First race	2006 Arizona Travel 200 (Phoenix)
Last race	2008 Food City 250 (Bristol)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 0 0

Samuel Jon Hornish, Jr. (born July 2, 1979 in Bryan, Ohio) is an American race car driver. He is best known for his open wheel accomplishments, which include an Indianapolis 500 victory and three Indy Racing League championships. He currently drives the #77 Mobil 1/Auto Club Dodge Charger for Penske Racing in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series.

Early career

Hornish began racing at the age of 11 in go-karts. After competing in junior leagues for various seasons, he joined the World Karting Association in 1993, winning seven races and posting twenty-nine top-five finishes. The following season, he won several championships in WKA, including the U.S. and Canadian Grand Championships, as well as the U.S. Junior Class Grand Championship. In 1995, he repeated his U.S. Grand National title and won nine races. He would move up to the United States F2000 Series, driving six races for his family-owned team, and had one top-ten finish at Watkins Glen International. He joined Bordin Racing in 1997 and had two eleventh-place finishes, before signing with Primus Racing. He had a second-place run at Pikes Peak International Raceway and finished seventh in points.

In 1999, Hornish moved to the Toyota Atlantic Series to drive for Shank Racing. He won Rookie of the Year after getting his victory at Chicago Motor Speedway. He also drove the 24 Hours of Daytona for Intersport Racing.

IRL career

Practicing for the 2007 Indianapolis 500

He first raced in the IRL in 2000 with the PDM Racing team, with a best finish of third. However, he switched to Panther Racing for the next season and improved enough to take the title from reigning champion Buddy Lazier. In 2002 the Penske team switched from Champ Car, and Sam was able to beat their top driver Hélio Castroneves to his second title. Along the way, Hornish beat Al Unser, Jr. by .0024 of a second in the Delphi Indy 300 in Chicago, possibly the closest race in auto history until the 2007 Indy Pro Season when Logan Gomez beat teammate and champion Alex Lloyd at the same racetrack by only 0.0005 sec, or 1.65 inches (42 mm).

In 2003, most of the established top US open-wheel teams were now racing in the series, with Honda and Toyota providing engines superior to the established Chevrolet unit Panther used. As a result, Cosworth was called in to supply a replacement engine informally dubbed the "Chevworth", with which Sam was a winner again, finishing 5th in the 2003 standings. For 2004 he moved to Penske, winning the season-opener but finding that Honda engines, and not Penske's Toyotas, were now the engine of choice. 2005 was an improvement, as he finished third to Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan in the standings and the top placement of any driver not driving for Andretti Green Racing.

On May 28, 2006, after starting on the pole for the 2006 Indianapolis 500, Hornish became the first driver to ever overtake for the lead on the race's final lap, ultimately winning the race in the last 450 feet (140 m) by a 0.0635-second margin over rookie Marco Andretti. Also in that year, he won the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Scott Brayton Award, awarded annually to the driver best exemplifying a spirit of tenacity as well as friendliness amongst the race's participants. Hornish went on to win the 2006 IRL championship in the final race of the season by a tiebreaker over defending champ Dan Wheldon. He became the first 3-time champion in IRL history. In 2007, he only won one race at Texas, and finished fifth in points.

NASCAR

Hornish competing in a 2006 International Race of Champions race at Texas Motor Speedway.

On October 28, 2006, Hornish announced that he would attempt to run the final two 2006 NASCAR Busch Series races for Penske Racing, as well as select events in 2007. In his first two Busch starts, Hornish wrecked his #39 Mobil 1 Dodge both times, and did not finish better than 36th. In 2007, his car was switched to the #12, and he competed in seven Busch races, his best finish being a 15th at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Beginning in fall 2007, he started attempting Nextel Cup races in the #06 for Penske, and made only two races (at Phoneix International Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway).

2008 car

He will drive the #77 full-time for Penske in Sprint Cup in 2008 with Mobil 1 sponsorship. In his first Daytona 500 he had a great race, finishing 15th. Teammates Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch finished first and second; to giving Roger Penske his first 1,2 finish in NASCAR. After the race Roger Penske said, "It is nice to see Sam display some of his racing talent in the biggest race in NASCAR." After struggling to make his first NASCAR Cup Series events; Phoenix where he finished 30th and Homestead where he finished 37th, after the 2008 Daytona 500 he admitted that even he was surprised to see himself running in the top-10 most of the day. He also said, "I wish they would have started the race about two hours sooner, so it still could have been sunny out. If the sun had never gone down, we would have had a better chance. Once the sun goes down, everybody starts getting more and more evenly matched up, because there's not all that worry about the tires sliding around so much because of the heat."

At the May All-Star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway Hornish finished second in the Sprint Showdown to earn a start in the All-Star race. Hornish finished 7th. Hornish would finish second in a competitive Rookie of the Year race to Regan Smith.

File:Sam Hornish 09 Phoenix.jpg 2.jpg

Sam Hornish signing autographs at the Penske merchandise trailer at the 2009 Subway Fresh Fit 500 in Avondale, AZ.

As the 2009 season started, the team had high hopes for the season. However, bad luck late in 4 of the first 6 races kept Sam from being able to achieve his elusive first top 10 finish in a Sprint Cup points race. Nevertheless, he showed great improvement from 2008. Finally, on April 18 in Phoenix, he got his top 10, finishing the race in 9th place. Two races later Sam again improved on his career best finish scoring 6th in the Russ Fieldman 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Despite its being a non-points race, Hornish got his first NASCAR victory by winning the annual Sprint Showdown. The win qualified him for his second All-Star race is as many years. He'd go on to finish 16th in the event.

As of the LifeLock.com 400, Hornish has scored two additional top ten finishes to give him four for the 2009 season. However, his struggles have continued as he has now finished 30th or worse in 9 of the 19 races run so far in 2009, with a worst finish of 38th (which he achieved twice, most recently at the aforementioned LifeLock.com 400).

NASCAR Sprint Cup results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Year	Team	#	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	Pos	Pts
2007	Penske Racing	06	Dodge	DAY	CAL	LSV	ATL	BRI	MAR	TEX	PHO	TAL	RIC	DAR	LOW	DOV	POC	MIC	INF	NHA	DY2	CHI	IND	PO2	GLN	MI2	BR2	CA2	RI2	NH2 DNQ	DV2 DNQ	KAN	TL2 DNQ	LW2 DNQ	MR2 DNQ	AT2 DNQ	TX2	PH2 30	HOM 37	62nd	135
2008	Penske Racing	77	Dodge	DAY 15	CAL 43	LSV 41	ATL 25	BRI 29	MAR 28	TEX 32	PHO 20	TAL 35	RIC 23	DAR 38	LOW 13	DOV 18	POC 42	MIC 22	INF 31	NHA 39	DY2 29	CHI 37	IND 21	PO2 26	GLN 32	MI2 22	BR2 37	CA2 31	RI2 38	NH2 30	DV2 42	KAN 33	TL2 DNQ	LW2 22	MR2 34	AT2 24	TX2 23	PH2 33	HOM DNQ	35th	2523
2009	Penske Racing	77	Dodge	DAY 32	CAL 23	LSV 16	ATL 37	BRI 31	MAR 34	TEX 17	PHO 9	TAL 34	RIC 6	DAR 30	LOW 16	DOV 13	POC 10	MIC 29	INF 38	NHA 8	DY2 32	CHI 38	IND	PO2	GLN	MI2	BR2	AT2	RI2	NH2	DV2	KAN	CA2	LW2	MR2	TA2	TX2	PH2	HOM	23rd	1371

Year	Starts*	Wins	Top Fives	Top Tens	Poles	DNF	Finish	Start	Winnings	Rank	Team(s)
2007	2	0	0	0	0	0	33.5	27.5	$126,325	62	Penske Racing
2008	34	0	0	0	0	4	29.6	27.9	$4,547,374	35	Penske Racing
2009	14	0	0	3	0	2	22.0	21.9	$1,702,279	23	Penske Racing
Totals	50	0	3	2	0	6	27.7	26.3	$6,375,978

* - 14 of 36 races (Data as of June 8, 2009)

Education/Family

Hornish is a 1998 graduate of Archbold High School in Archbold, Ohio, and now resides in Napoleon.

On February 4, 2008 Sam and his wife Crystal welcomed their first child, Addison Faith Hornish, into the world. Baby Addison weighed 7 lb (3.2 kg). 2oz. and measured 18 inches (460 mm). Hornish finished 15th in his first Daytona 500 just a couple of weeks after.

Motorsport Career Results

American Open Wheel

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

IndyCar

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
2000	PDM	WDW 20	PHX Ret	LSV 3	IND Ret	TXS Ret	PPIR Ret	ATL DNS	KTY 9	TX2 Ret									21st	110
2001	Panther	PHX 1	HMS 1	ATL 4	IND 14	TXS 3	PPIR 2	RIR 2	KAN 2	NSH 6	KTY 3	STL 3	CHI 2	TX2 1					1st	503
2002	Panther	HMS 1	PHX 3	CAL 1	NZR 17	IND 25	TXS Ret	PPIR 3	RIR 1	KAN 2	NSH 3	MIS 7	KTY 2	STL 5	CHI 1	TX2 1			1st	531
2003	Panther	HMS 10	PHX Ret	JPN 6	IND Ret	TXS 10	PPIR 5	RIR 4	KAN Ret	NSH 11	MIS 2	STL 6	KTY 1	NZR 2	CHI 1	CAL 1	TX2 Ret		5th	461
2004	Penske	HMS 1	PHX 15	JPN Ret	IND Ret	TXS 4	RIR 11	KAN 8	NSH 2	MIL 3	MIS 4	KTY 14	PPIR Ret	NZR 11	CHI 6	CAL 4	TX2 Ret		7th	387
2005	Penske	HMS 2	PHX 1	STP Ret	JPN 7	IND Ret	TXS 2	RIR Ret	KAN 12	NSH 2	MIL 1	MIS 5	KTY 7	PPIR 2	SNM 17	CHI 3	WGL 7	CAL 5	3rd	512
2006	Penske	HMS 3	STP 8	JPN 4	IND 1	WGL 12	TXS 4	RIR 1	KAN 1	NSH Ret	MIL 2	MIS Ret	KTY 1	SNM 9	CHI 3				1st-TB	475
2007	Penske	HMS 3	STP 7	JPN 5	KAN 6	IND 4	MIL 9	TXS 1	IOW Ret	RIR 15	WGL 2	NSH 4	MDO 14	MIS Ret	KTY Ret	SNM 5	DET 12	CHI 3	5th	465

Years	Teams	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships
8	3	116	12	19	27	32	1 (2006)	3 (2001, 2002, 2006)

References

External links

• Official Website
• Stock car statistics