Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Brickyard 400 Notes & Quotes (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)
Friday, July 26, 2013
Sam Hornish Jr., comes back to Indianapolis Motor Speedway looking to add a NASCAR Nationwide Series win to his previous Indianapolis 500 victory at the Brickyard. The current NNS points leader spoke about that feat along with his NASCAR racing with media members Friday afternoon.
SAM HORNISH JR., No. 12 Wurth Ford Mustang – TALK ABOUT WHAT THIS RACETRACK MEANS TO YOU. “I am really excited about the opportunity to come and run tomorrow in the Nationwide Series. I came just short of winning last year and having the opportunity to be the inaugural race winner. We had a 1-2 finish for Penske Racing, which was the same as last weekend and I was on the short end of that stick. It was a good weekend for the team and to be able to take over the points lead is good. A lot of people asked me if I was more excited about going to Indianapolis or having the points lead. It is about the same for me. I am excited about both opportunities. I am looking forward to the race starting. Last year we weren’t very good in practice and qualified like 14th but then had a good solid day and raced hard and I was happy with where we ended up from where we started out at. It seems we are back at that again this year. We aren’t quite where we need to be for where the car needs to be. We have some work to do overnight but I have a lot of faith in the guys that they will do a good job. As much as I want to win here and would love to collect the bonus for Nationwide, the thing we need to continue to maintain and focus on is the fact that we are trying to win a championship this year. Race wins are great but at the end of the day we have to be smart and do all the things necessary to give ourselves the best opportunity to win the championship.”
WITH HOW YOU RAN LAST WEEK AND GAINING THE LEAD BACK AND NOW COMING HERE TO IMS. WHERE IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL? “I think we have had a good amount of confidence this year. Sometimes maybe a little overconfident in what we are able to do but I feel really good about the way we ran last weekend. Even when we were behind in the points people asked me if I was worried but the way we were running I didn’t think there was any reason we wouldn’t regain the points lead at some point as long as we didn’t have too much bad luck along the way. We’ve had good race cars and the guys are working hard. We feel there are still adjustments we can make to make our team better but we aren’t looking at it like we need a 10% gain in one spot. It is the fine tuning of a percent here and there. We need a little better pit stops, better strategy, a little better driver feedback. It is all just a bunch of little things. This is a wildcard race for us in a lot of ways. We don’t run any other tracks that really overlap with what we are going to experience here. If we went to Pocono we would have something similar but this is the only track we run that is in this ballpark. It does make it difficult to figure out where we need to be for Indianapolis. We only get the two practice sessions this morning that were done by 11:30 and we started on the track at 8:30 and we were very free. As soon as the sun peeked up over the grandstands we ended up being tight. That shows you how quick things can change here. We do have a lot of momentum going and feel great about what we are doing but this is one of those weekends we aren’t really sure where we were going to be on the competitive scale and we have shown that we have a little bit of work to do yet.”
WHEN YOU ARE HERE, HOW MUCH ARE YOU REMINDED OF 2006? “It is definitely a lot going on but one of the biggest things … I remember one time I came here, maybe in 2004 or 2005 and I had driven down from Ohio and had all my stuff in the car and had left my hard card in my bag in the back. I got down here to the tunnel and it wasn’t like it was even race day weekend, it was well before the 500 started and I came out of the tunnel and the guy was like, ‘I need to see your hard card.’ I told him it was in my suitcase and he wasn’t going to let me through without photo identification. I wanted to be a smart ass and tell him to walk out the tunnel and look up because I was the previous series champion for the year and they had a thing that was 30-foot tall by 30-foot wide and I ended up having to go get my hard card. Yesterday I brought some parts down for the team because we tested in Toledo earlier in the week. I brought some stuff so they didn’t have to take it on their commercial flight. I drove up to the tunnel and told them my pass was in my motor home, which I lied because it wasn’t and I knew I still had to go out there but I was trying to get the stuff to the guys before it closed. I pulled right up into where the haulers were parked at so we could unload it but they know me now. I shouldn’t maybe say that because they will think I am trying to take advantage of them but there are a lot of yellow shirts glad to see me and a lot of fans that have pictures for me to sign. I signed a group of pictures for a guy, everything from my rookie race here and qualifying pictures and like four or five from the day I won. After that whole deal was over yesterday I went to get my pass in the office building over there and one of my daughters asked if my picture was up around here. I told her yes and I took them to the museum and showed them my face on the trophy and some of the stuff up there. They got a kick out of that. I ranked second to Bob Sweikert’s pink No. 6 car that he ran in 1955 though. Having two little girls, they like pink.”
YOU HAVE WON THE BIGGEST RACE THIS TRACK HAS TO OFFER. HOW CAN A NATIONWIDE VICTORY COMPARE TO THAT IN YOUR MIND? “It could compare real good. If they had a foot race around the place anyone would want to win it. That is why I think you always see how seriously the Cup guys take it and Nationwide and everybody. Everybody wants to come to Indianapolis. Anyone that tells you they didn’t dream of racing at Indianapolis growing up, no matter what they are in now as far as a racing forum, they either didn’t know about the Indy 500 because they lived under a rock or they are lying to you. Look at what it means to a guy like Tony Stewart. Look at what Kurt Busch did this year giving himself the opportunity to come test a car and see if it is something he wants to do. Whatever your pinnacle is, running at Indianapolis is definitely right up there for everybody.”
DOES IT FEEL THE SAME? THE PRESTIGE AND ALL THAT COMING IN A DIFFERENT SERIES? DOES IT FEEL DIFFERENT IN A STOCK CAR? “I only get to feel it for about three days as opposed to three weeks like I used to go through. It seems like I get the question more and more as time goes by. People ask if I miss going to Indianapolis or miss the 500. I never miss the 500. I watch on TV. Eventually when I get done racing I will go and come back here and be a fan just like I was 25 years ago as a kid enjoying it that way. The best part about it for me though now is the fact that I don’t have all the stress that is involved with it. It is difficult enough to come here for three days. I want to go out there and win. This means a lot to me. I was disappointed, very disappointed after the race last year when we finished second. Everyone said I should be really happy but I said, ‘You guys don’t understand what it means to me and I know you should understand what it means for Roger.’ I came in three months later and there was a giant picture on the back wall of Brad kissing the bricks. That is it right there. Everyone whether they work there, are a sponsor or a fan of Penske Racing are going to see that giant picture and that shows exactly what it means and how neat it is to be able to run here and win races. It being the inaugural race here last year it would have been awesome to win. I love coming here. There is a ton of prestige and I still get the same butterflies when I walk outside for driver introductions and things like that.”
DO YOU FEEL EXTRA PRESSURE BECAUSE IT IS INDIANAPOLIS? “I know how awesome it is to be able to win here. A lot of people, until you get that feeling of kissing the bricks, it is a tough thing for you to be able to explain to anybody. There will always be pressure of coming here no matter what I race. It is a thrilling feeling to be able to come here to race but it does make me a little bit nervous sometimes because I know that given the opportunity to win or to think about finishing second and padding the points lead, I might not make the right decision when it comes down to it tomorrow if I get myself in position to win this race. I don’t know how many of you remember the final lap of the 500 last year and everybody thought Sato run such a good race and then threw it away at the end. That is exactly what I would have done given the opportunity. You have to drive it in there and try. Who cares if you are second place? You don’t get your picture on the trophy or a bonus for doing that. He gave it his all and crashed out trying to do it, but that is what it is all about.”
DID YOU TALK TO KURT BUSCH MUCH ABOUT THE TEST HE DID? ALSO, IF THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY PRESENTED ITSELF, COULD YOU SEE YOURSELF IN AN INDY CAR AGAIN? “I talked to Kurt for 45 minutes to an hour on the phone. He called me up one day and wanted to know about sitting in the car and differences between the Indy Car and Stock Car and little things about the nuances. A lot of the things he asked me I knew he had put a lot of thought into. It was neat for me to be able to go through those things because there are so many things that don’t transfer over between the two cars. I had a lot of fun actually explaining to him things I had experienced running the Indy Car here and the differences between it. The fact that he has ran here in a Stock Car as much as he has was a neat thing for me because he has been around here a ton of laps so it isn’t like he doesn’t know how to do it. It just showed how serious it is. He only went and did some practice this year but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see him make it happen where he runs the Indy 500 in the next couple of years. As far as me running an Indy Car ever again, I don’t know, maybe in a vintage race or something. I don’t see it coming. The reason I left is because I did everything I felt I could accomplish or way more than I ever wanted to and thought it was time to challenge myself again and this challenge has really lived up to it. I am not to the point where I feel I have completed what my goals were at that point in time. Going back doesn’t help me complete those goals. Plus, after having won the Indy 500, it would make it easier for me to decide to go back if I hadn’t ever won, but since I did, I have that feeling of that success and I can just move forward from there.”
WHAT IF THE IRL AND NASCAR PUT THE INDY 500 AND COKE 600 ON THE SAME DAY? WOULD THAT BE A CHALLENGE YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN? “At some point in time I think that would be a neat goal to try to accomplish just because not too many people have done that in general but that is a tough task. There is a lot going on to be able to think about being able to do that. To be honest I would have to get back up in the Cup Series full time first before I would consider doing both of those. Yeah, it would be nice to say that I did it but I don’t want to come down here and run in something that isn’t capable of winning and fly 800 miles to get in something else that isn’t capable of winning just to say that I did it. It would be difficult for me to try to bite off more than I could chew already with that. Who is to say what might happen in the future. Like I said, I get a lot of enjoyment out of watching the Indianapolis 500 anymore just because of all the stress I put on myself actually running it in the past. I don’t know that I could ever step back and figure out a way to not be that stressed out about it. I feel like a lot of years it was the month of May lasted all year long. If we didn’t do well I thought about it for the next 11 months until we came back. You maybe take a day off from thinking about it on Memorial Day and then you start again.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE PROSPECT OF LIGHTS AT THIS PLACE? “That would be something. That is a lot of area to light up. I don’t know exactly how it would all pan out but I guarantee you it would probably make for a better Sprint Cup race here because generally when we come here it is so hot and the sun is beating down on the track and it makes everything slick. When you run those night races you get cooler temperatures and more grip on the car and more down force and all that good stuff. The more you get of that the more competitive the races seem to be. I don’t know if that is the cause of why people are speculating it but that would sure be neat to be able to be here for that. I remember flying over here about five or six years ago and it is like the whole area is lit up around the speedway and you could see the perfect outline of utter blackness where the speedway was at because there aren’t many lights inside of it. To think about what it would take to light this place up is a big undertaking.”
DOES CORNER DOWNFORCE TRANSLATE INTO THE STOCK CAR HERE? IS IT A LOT MORE GRIP THE FASTER YOU GO IN THE CORNERS HERE? “I think the 165 mph or whatever it is we are going right now puts more gray hairs on my head than some of the 230 mph laps that I did here. I always liken it to this. The Indy Cars with the higher amounts of grip and all the things they have going with them in that direction, if you get out of shape you wreck about nine out of 10 times. With these cars, you get out of shape and save it nine out of 10 times. That just means you are out of control or sliding around that many more laps. That is the toughest thing about switching from Indy Car over to here. When I first went it was like I could slide it around more and get away with it but you have to understand how much of that is okay. You can’t save it all the time so you don’t want to push it to that limit every single lap. Sometimes you get into that mindset of it always moving around so you can drive it that way. You sometimes have to step back. These cars, the stock cars, feel like you are going every bit as fast at the end of that straightaway as what we were doing in Indy Car because you have that same look of the corner turn and you know you have a 3,500 lb race car that is 2,000 lbs more than the Indy Car and you have about a quarter of the down force.”
HOW MUCH WOULD A VICTORY HERE HELP SOLIDIFY A FOUNDATION FOR A NATIONWIDE SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP? “It would be awesome but at the end of the day we have to maintain what is important. We have shown how strong we have been and there have been a lot of races this year where we were the only competition for the 22 and 54, so I think that shows that we are very deserving of winning the championship. We have run extremely well with a couple issues that have put us in the back or a piece of debris blow our oil pump up, we would be somewhere around 50-60 points ahead. Those are things everybody fights from time to time and I love racing here and want to win this race more than anything and at the end of the day tomorrow if I am in position with the opportunity I will have to remind myself that we are here to race for points but I don’t know if I will listen.”
