Sam Hornish Jr., driver of the No. 12 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger, had hoped to finish better than 25th in Saturday s Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway, but an early race brush with the wall turned a cold day at the track a little colder.
“Obviously, it wasn t the kind of day that we wanted, ” Hornish said. “A lot of things, a flat right-front tire, pit lane speeding penalties and a mid-race incident contributed to the day we had. The accident we were involved in made the car just really hard to drive. We tried to work on it to make it better, but we never got the car back to where we needed it to be. “
Hornish, who started 13th, brushed the 1.33-mile track s wall coming off turn four on the eighth lap. A short time later, his Dodge suffered a cut right-rear tire and forced him to make a green-flag stop on lap 28. However, Hornish was caught speeding on pit road, his first of two such penalties in the 225-lap race. NASCAR officials assessed him a pass-through penalty that he served three laps later, which relegated him to 36th, three laps down to the leader.
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