RICHMOND, Va. — If Sam Hornish, Jr. leaves the IRL IndyCar Series to race for Penske Racing in NASCAR Nextel Cup next season, which appears to be what will indeed happen, the IndyCar Series will be losing its greatest American star.
Ironically, it won’t be a devastating blow, as the face of the series has become Danica Patrick, Marco Andretti and even Dan Wheldon instead of Hornish.
It’s too bad because Hornish can lay claim to the greatest driver ever produced by the Indy Racing League. Although Tony Stewart was an IRL champion before he left for NASCAR after the 1998 season, much of Stewart’s fame and success has come behind the wheel of a stock car, not an Indy car.
Hornish has 19 IndyCar victories and is the only driver in series history to win three championships. His win in the 2006 Indianapolis 500 was the crowning achievement of his career, and once he accomplished that goal, that’s when team owner Roger Penske and team president Tim Cindric began to focus on moving the talented driver from Defiance, Ohio, toward NASCAR.
Even Hornish admitted Saturday night after the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond Int’l Raceway that the Indy 500 victory was the key.
“If I hadn’t won the Indianapolis 500, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all,” Hornish said after his 15th-place finish. “That allows me on one hand to go do that, but on the other hand want to stay some more.”
For a driver who has achieved so much success behind the wheel of an Indy car, Hornish doesn’t get the credit he would have gotten in an earlier era.
If this was the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s, Hornish would be lauded and compared to such drivers as A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al Unser and Rick Mears. Instead, he has to toil away in a Penske stock car in his off weekends to prepare for the transition that will come when he makes the jump to NASCAR.
Because IndyCar Series racing is attempting to build itself back up to prominence, it has been a slow process. And even when Hornish leaves, it won’t be a devastating blow because it will continue with Wheldon, Patrick, Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti, Andretti and Tony Kanaan as its marquee drivers.
But it’s a shame if Hornish leaves because he was a natural behind the wheel.
He made difficult moves look easy compared to NASCAR driving, where he makes easy moves look difficult.
Unfortunately in 2007, if an American driver is going to achieve greatness, he has to do it in NASCAR, which has so many fans and so much exposure — something Hornish has rarely been able to experience in his career.
Even some at Team Penske have privately asked what Hornish has left to prove in the IndyCar Series. After all, he won back-to-back titles in 2001 and 2002 and gave Penske his 14th Indy 500 victory in 2006. When Hornish won his third IndyCar title last year, it was Penske’s first, and with no other driver in IndyCar history with more than one championship, he could leave IndyCar racing in great position.
His next victory in IndyCar will be his 20th, giving him an unbelievable winning percentage near 20 percent.
For years, Hornish was the “Poster Boy of the IndyCar Series,” but since then, the posters display images of Patrick, Andretti and Wheldon.
It will be a sad day for IndyCar when Hornish leaves. What’s even sadder is IndyCar racing isn’t a destination for a top American driver anymore.
It once looked like Hornish would spend his entire career in the seat of an Indy car.
Not anymore.