Ron Hornaday Jr. keeps checking off the tracks where he’s won NASCAR Camping World trucks races.
Hornaday checked off Kansas Speedway last season, leaving, by his count, six tracks still on the list. But Hornaday still has a little unfinished business in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.
In eight years of racing, no one has won a second trucks race at the track. Jeff Gordon won the first two Sprint Cup races in 2001-02; and Dan Wheldon has won the last two IndyCar races in 2007-08.
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“Kansas has been good to us,” Hornaday said. “I still have my little pedal car (trophy) they give to the pole winner. When I got home, I walked by (co-owner) Kevin Harvick’s office, and he had one from the (2008) Nationwide race.”
“It’s a competition level that NASCAR has done with this trucks series that makes everybody so close,” Hornaday said. “The track is getting older with multiple grooves. Before, it was a wide-open racetrack where the best handling truck and the guy who saved the tires was going to win the thing.”
“Now, it’s getting a little more age on it, and it’s getting back in the drivers’ hands. You have to use the gas pedal and brake a little bit more, so it puts on a little better race.”
Hornaday said a rules change by NASCAR in which teams can only take fuel or tires on pit stops can determine Saturday’s race.
“I’m very fortunate at my age for what Kevin and DeLana Harvick are doing, and to my wife and everybody letting me do this, ” he said. “My kids are growing up now. I’m chasing my dream.
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“I’m having more fun racing … I just wish we had more races. With just 25 races on the trucks schedule, I’m mowing the grass …riding a lawn mower is not getting me skinny.”
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