Hornish Jr. back in driver's seat after career stalled
Sam Hornish Jr. couldn't help but concede the point to himself. His search for the next perfect fit, any fit, had been fruitless. And his career as a full-time driver at NASCAR's highest level might very well be over.
It had been five years since sponsor maladies and uneven performance had prompted Team Penske – with whom he won the 2006 IndyCar championship and Indianapolis 500, and soon hastened his transition to Sprint Cup – to downsize his program, imperiling his career. Recast as a Cup journeyman and Xfinity Series driver for Penske until further financial problems set him adrift again, Hornish Jr. was very much on the cusp of career oblivion at age 35.
But then another driver flicked the first domino. Marcos Ambrose's decision to repatriate to Australia and resume his title-winning career as a V8 Supercar driver – coincidentally, with Team Penske – opened his ride in the No. 9 Ford at Richard Petty Motorsports, and after four years of conversation, Hornish Jr. signed with RPM to run a full-time schedule beginning this season. In a perverse twist, RPM had just ten of 36 points races sold as of last week, but CEO Brian Moffitt vowed the team plan was to contest a full season. Hornish Jr. has put his trust as much as the next phase of his career in RPM's pledge.
"When I started talking to everyone at RPM, they told me the situation they were in with the sponsorship and where they were at, 'Yeah we want to go with the guy that gives us the best opportunity to go out and be competitive,'" Hornish Jr. told USA Today Sports. "When you don't have any money to bring along with you, you always have that feeling that money's going to talk and that you're going to be outside of it. But they really lived up to what they said they wanted to do."
RPM competition director Sammy Johns said Hornish Jr., a three-time IndyCar champion, was hired because "he's won at the highest levels of motorsports and I think he's just a good fit," and Penske lobbied his fellow Ford-driving counterparts vigorously to do so. Penske, almost exuding relief, after admitting he had likely pushed Hornish Jr. too quickly to Cup with little Xfinity tutelage, equated the situation with seeing a son realize a dream.
Hornish Jr. managed just two top-5s and eight top 10s in his first three Cup seasons with Penske before his No. 77 Ford program was dissolved. Penske chose A.J. Allmendinger to replace Kurt Busch upon his release after the 2011 season, but Hornish Jr. took over the No. 22 Ford for 19 races in 2012 when Allmendinger was fired following a drug suspension. Hornish Jr. had just one top-5 finish and Penske then hired Joey Logano to drive the vacant No. 22 Ford beginning in 2013. Hornish Jr. was a runner-up for Penske in the Xfinity Series in 2013 but found himself jobless again when sponsor woes scuttled the car. He contested just eight races – with a win at Iowa - for Gibbs Racing in 2014. A long-rumored fourth Cup program at JGR came to fruition but Carl Edwards was hired to drive the car.
"I guess the whole time I was at Penske, there was the we're close to finding what we need to find, but when I filled in for AJ and Joey was hired, I was going to be realistic about it," Hornish Jr. admitted. "I've always tried to position myself after that to the point where I could try to find the right job, to be able to go to JGR for a year and for them to offer me an opportunity, put me in great equipment, so when I am out on the track, to have people think about me because we're running up front. I thought that was pretty good. Then the fourth cup spot filled in over there, so it was another 'is it ever going to happen?'"
Whereas he was a cog in an ultra-successful machine when he joined Team Penske's IndyCar program in 2004, Hornish Jr. joins an RPM organization that has shown signs of sloughing years of mediocrity after earning a Chase for the Sprint Cup berth in 2014 with Aric Almirola. Being part of that process energizes Hornish Jr. The first of several visits with Petty at RPM's historic former base in Level Cross, N.C. solidified for him that he had found a place that he could not only start over, but start something.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who has done so much for auto racing in general. Everybody knows who The King is," Hornish Jr. said. "To be able to spend that time with him, to get to know him a little bit better and to be able to see where he came from, there's a lot of similarities about the way that we were raised and the hard-working parents that did things when they could do it and even the way that Petty Enterprises, now where Petty's garage is, how that was built, you know. We're going to build when we have the money to do it."
And now Hornish Jr. has his next chance to build a Sprint Cup career.
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