Q.Now you’ve got to go for a fifth. Any fun off-season things that you would like to share with us?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: Very quiet Christmas and New Year’s. I was with Bodine on his wedding, so I can’t say quiet New Year’s. Great Christmas with the kids, grandkids, a lot of fun. Pretty exciting first seeing Bodine get married. He told a story when he went to put the ring on her finger and it didn’t fit. He said, do I really have to marry her now? Is that an omen? Beautiful wedding, though.
Q. I’m hoping we’ll get a story out of this, but can you go back a little bit, your history with Dave Fuge, whatever it might be? Have you worked together? I’m sure you’ve raced around each other, two old-school guys getting together for this 2010 season, what are you looking forward to?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: Well, when I first started racing, used to go to Mesa Marin, and when we saved enough money—our local track was Saugus, and we’d have to travel a couple hours to Bakersfield. And Dave Fuge, to go up there, you’ve got to beat one of his cars. It was Fuge Race Cars, and he was one of the best. And when he started his truck team he designed his own chassis, did his own bodies, him and Mark Smith paired up and they were a battling team. They’ve won two championships with two different drivers. I got an opportunity to drive his truck to help Mike Bliss win the championship down at Homestead and we ended up winning the race and Mike won the championship. Dave and I kind of go way back. We’ve never had a run-in, so that’s a plus. Rick Ren and I had a run-in before, and he became a great crew chief, too.
We’re in a box at KHI. Kevin knows what he wants on his trucks, he knows what he wants for a body, he knows what wind tunnel numbers he wants. Our hands are tied. When we leave the shop, what it is is what we’ve got. We can change a spring here, and we can change a little bit of tow and stuff like that. It’s back to calling great races and driving as hard as we can up to me and Dave. When we leave the shop, both trucks are going to be exactly the same, the Nationwide and truck teams, and we’re just going to keep everything on the same page, so it’s going to be easy for Dave Fuge and myself.
Q. A year ago Rick Crawford was in here and he was really passionate, almost tearful, talking about the challenges that are ahead for the Camping World Series. Are a lot of those challenges still there? Most people argue that the trucks put on the best races. What more can you do to kind of move your way up the ladder there?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: We sat in here last year at the same time talking about that, and we didn’t think we were going to have a full field. I think there was one or maybe two races we didn’t have 36 trucks. We came down here, and I think we sent two of them home. That just says a lot for the Truck Series. People get in their trucks, put a quick sponsor together to come down here for Daytona. I know there’s new teams out there. I know of seven new teams that are starting, seven new trucks, not teams. So I don’t know. NASCAR, we’re going to Pocono, we’re doing the things we need to do. Do we need to go back to shorter tracks? I don’t know. When Kevin hired me, he said he had to hire an extra body guy. We need to stay on these big racetracks. When we said we were going to Daytona, I didn’t get a chance—I came down here, but I didn’t get a chance to race the first race at Daytona. I thought NASCAR was nuts.
But the second year I got to drive Ricky Hendrick’s truck down here. I think I ran 10, 15 laps, got out and praised NASCAR how good these trucks run at a super speedway.
The venues and tracks we’re going to this year, the new teams coming in, some of the new sponsors, you’ll see some neat colors on my truck this year I’m looking forward to. It’s truck racing. We just got done doing a great commercial. NASCAR is definitely behind the Truck Series 125 percent. I’m looking forward to 2010. I think we’ve got some great things coming.
Q. Is it fair to say there’s more optimism this year than there was a year ago?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: I think so.
Q. Glass half full now rather than half empty?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: You know, I don’t know where these sponsors are coming from, but it seems like people are still getting last minute sponsors coming aboard and all that stuff, but they’re still dedicated to do it themselves. They’re still coming to a lot of these racetracks. I know a lot of these guys are dedicated. I know another new team, one of Crawford’s trucks, we’re going to see when we go down there. It’s going to be pretty awesome.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about what it’s going to be like not to hear Rick Ren’s voice in your ear during the race, and how do you think he’s going to help Kyle, but then again, is he going to be giving Kyle maybe some inside information on you that might help Kyle?
RON HORNADAY, JR.: Well, I guess you haven’t really listened to our conversation, Rick Ren and mine. I said, Rick, are you listening to me? He says, hold on, I’ve got to write these notes down. He’s always been a big note taker. To get answers it’s always been Rick Carelli. Rick called some great races with the pit stops the way they were, it threw us all up for a curving at the beginning of the year, and I think Rick and I learned that. NASCAR has changed some of the rules back this year.
Rick and I have won a lot of races together, and like I said, ten years ago with Rick Ren coming over, it probably wouldn’t have worked. I was so hardheaded and he was hardheaded. I think the gel factor of Rick and I understanding what Kevin and Delana has given us to work with, it’s not going to miss a beat. I know that he’s going to do a great job for Kyle. He’s definitely an organizer, he definitely keeps a lot of paperwork.
We came down here for the first Daytona test, and if you’ve ever seen the front of a hauler, how all the chairs are out there, I asked him a question, and he said, hold on a minute, and he started taking his notebook out. And by the time we were done, I had to get up because he had no more room for all his notes. So he can never give you an answer until he gets the right answer. That’s what I’ll miss about Rick. He really studies things and all that stuff. When we leave the shop, we’re usually the best. We try to change things at the track, we try get better.
The last five races we tried things for this year that didn’t work, and we put them right back to what we knew from the first race.
If we do that—we’re building all brand new Trucks the last two races, one was our 2010 KHI trucks and Kevin sold every other truck but the two we’ve got and I’m tested those last week.
Just talked to Dave Fuge today, our truck for Daytona just got off the plate. It’s in the paint shop right now, and our second truck will be done, and the third truck don’t get here until next Wednesday. They’re going to be struggling to get the 2 truck done, but they built those two trucks within a week time period to go to Phoenix and Homestead for Kevin. I have no doubt they can’t built four more trucks before Daytona.
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