i dont care what anyone says hornish def the best outside passer in indy league.......well when he was racing in indy anyway......gotta shoutout that i was there sitting on the backstretch durring his 2006 indy win...i didnt get to see it but i heard it i was rooting for him so hard and on the final lap when the cars passed me and he was still in second me heart sank then they go around turn 3 and my heart starts to race then out of nowhere i hear over the loud speakers the comentators yelling HORNISH WINS! HORNISH WINS! one of the best days of my life....i woulda been 14 or 15 at the time
That's an amazing story! Hornish had a great time at Penske but for me his prime was at Panther, some of the stuff he used to pull off was stunning, the outsides overtakes... even in the 2003 season when Panther's car had declined from the seasons where he was the champion, he still managed to win and put on a show. I wonder how his career would have gone if he had tried his luck at Formula One at some point, although some drivers in ovals can't make the transition to F1 circuits. Anyway, Hornish is top 3 of all time for ovals, no doubt about it.
Always made the outside line work at tracks you wouldn't expect. In NASCAR, Earnhardt was known for the side draft, Hornish perfected side drafting in IndyCar. Phoenix-Miami-Texas, Homestead-California-Richmond-Chicagoland-Texas, Kentucky-Chicagoland-California, Homestead, Phoenix-Milwaukee, Indianapolis 500-Richmond-Kansas-Kentucky, and finally Texas.
+X2Lazy2WinX Well Sam was good when the IRL was just racing ovals in the early 2000's, where he is really good. But around 06' & 07', when the IRL started going to race on road courses he started not doing as good, so really going to NASCAR too me, really saved his career because now the IRL is like CART in the 90's in terms of ovals to road course ratio, and he would have never been able to last as long today.
One of the guys that could have been better served staying in Indycar or coming to NASCAR earlier when they didn't have the COT, I think he would have been better with the pre-COT cars.
Not unless it's a top ride in NASCAR. He was toying with the idea of IndyCar in 2018, but ultimately decided against it since it'd be way more difficult to return to than NASCAR.
