Former IndyCar champion Sam Hornish Jr. won a NASCAR national touring series race for the first time by prevailing in Saturday’s crash-filled Wypall 200 Nationwide Series event at Phoenix International Raceway.
Hornish, who is running a partial Nationwide schedule for Penske Racing this season, took the lead from points leader Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after a restart with 61 laps remaining. Stenhouse gave up the top spot when he spun his tires on the restart.
Hornish then held off his Penske teammate Brad Keselowski in three more late- race restarts before beating Keselowski to the finish line by 0.55 seconds for his first win in his 32nd start in NASCAR’s second-tier series.
Stenhouse wound up finishing fifth but significantly increased his championship lead to 41 points over Elliott Sadler with only one race to go—next Saturday at Homestead, FL. Sadler was involved in a five-car accident with 24 laps left and ended up finishing 27th. He entered the penultimate race 17 points out of the lead. MiamiHerald.com
“It feels great to be able to race Brad and Carl there at the end,” said Hornish, who has been driving part time in the Nationwide Series this season. “I’m just so happy. These guys have all worked so hard. We’ve been on and off all year long. It’s been a tough year for us for a lot of different reasons.
“Every 10 years, I guess, I get to come to Victory Lane here for the first time in a different kind of car, so it’s pretty special.” NASCAR.com
“Man, that sure is great,” Keselowski said. “Sam has paid a lot of dues in NASCAR and it’s great to see him get some success out of it.”
Running close to Leffler heading into turn 1, he dropped down almost to the apron on the dogleg before shooting back up the track in front of Leffler, who was racing next to polesitter Aric Almirola.
Leffler misjudged Sadler’s speed and bumped him from behind, sending his car careening into the wall. Sadler bounced off backward and took out both Leffler and Almirola, leaving a trail of debris across the track that brought out the red flag.
“I was racing Aric and I just made a mistake. It’s all my fault,” Leffler said. “It certainly wasn’t anything I wanted to do to Elliott and his guys and affect the championship like that.”
“Not much respect for guys running for the championship,” Sadler said. “He just hit us square in the rear and lost it. I don’t understand. He’s not running for anything.”
The longer the race went, though, the more the outside line seemed to come in.
Hornish made the final pass for the lead from the outside, overtaking Stenhouse when he appeared to spin his wheels on the green flag.
Hornish spun his wheels on the restart with 19 laps left after Sadler’s wreck, but recovered to stay in front of Keselowski and win in his 32nd Nationwide start.
“I won so much over at Indy that I didn’t know how much to appreciate it at the time,” Hornish said. ESPN
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