LEBANON, Tenn. (April 3, 2010)—- Ron Hornaday might need to borrow his boss, Kevin Harvick’s nickname. A “Happy” Hornaday climbed from behind the wheel of the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) Longhorn in Nashville with a huge smile, despite fighting an ill-handling race truck the majority of the day. Hornaday and the No. 33 Longhorn Chevrolet team worked endlessly to try and become the first back-to-back Truck Series winner at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, but they fell a few positions short finishing the Nashville 200 with a solid third-place finish.
“We tired a left-front shock with a bigger bar, but it just didn’t work,” said Hornaday following the race. “It was bouncing all over the place. The No. 33 Longhorn Chevrolet team will take a third-place finish after that. The guys did great on pit road tonight getting us some track position. We didn’t have anything for Kyle [Busch]. We ran him down that one time, but couldn’t get by him. I learned a little bit racing with him. Doug [George] made an air-pressure adjustment then I messed up on that one restart, but we will take another strong finish and go on to the next one.”
Hornaday began the Nashville 200 from the fifth starting position. Early in the race eventual race winner Kyle Busch jumped out to a sizeable lead. As the laps clicked off Hornaday rode in the fourth position reeling in the trucks of Matt Crafton and Timothy Peters. On lap 20, Hornaday squeaked by Peters and two other lapped trucks to assume the third position. A few laps later, Hornaday was able to overtake Crafton for second. The first caution of the night waved on lap 30. Under the yellow flag condition, the No. 33 team brought Hornaday down pit road for the first scheduled pit stop of the evening. Four fresh tires, fuel, an air-pressure adjustment and quick work by the No. 33 team placed Hornaday back on track in the second position for the restart on lap 45. By lap 47, Hornaday was on Busch’s quarter panels battling for the lead. Unable to make the pass stick, Hornaday settled into the second position. By lap 59, the No. 33 truck became increasingly loose. Hornaday attempted to fix the problem by turning bead blowers on and off inside the truck helping to build or release air pressure inside the tires. At the halfway point of the race, Hornaday was turning the fastest laps of anyone on the track; however the No. 33 truck struggled to find consistency in the lap times, unable to gain ground on the leaders.
On lap 99, the leaders came down pit road for the first round of green-flag pit stops of the 2010 season. Hornaday took on four tires and fuel while the team made a wedge adjustment. Hornaday returned to the track in the fourth position. Following the cycle of green-flag stops, the second and final caution of the night waved on lap 105. Five of the eight trucks on the lead lap elected to remain on the race track. Hornaday and the No. 33 team chose to hold their position for the final restart on lap 109. Hornaday was able to gain one position on the restart moving into the third position as he battled Todd Bodine. Hornaday pulled away by four truck lengths and held the gap as Busch and Harvick fought for the win.
Busch went on to win the first race for Kyle Busch Motorsports with Hornaday’s KHI teammate Harvick finishing second. Hornaday scored his second top-five finish in two weeks with a third-place run while points leader Peters finished fourth and Bodine rounded out the top five. With the third-place finish, Hornaday jumped another six spots in the Truck Series point standings moving into the sixth position only 178 markers out of first.
The Truck Series returns to action on May 2nd at Kansas Speedway.
STATS RECAP
Race Info
April 2, 2010
Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway
Race: 3 of 25
Driver: Ron Hornaday
Started: 5th
Finished: 3rd
Truck Series Point Standings: 6th (-178)
Next on the Schedule for the No. 33:
Date: May 2, 2010
Track: Kansas Speedway
Event Name: O’Reilly Auto Parts 250
Driver: Ron Hornaday
Broadcast Time: SPEED 12:30 p.m., EST MRN 12:30 p.m., EST