With new image, wife and team, Hornish has bright outlook
So far, married life is treating the IRL champion well.
By STEPHEN HAWKINS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The goatee is no longer a fixture on the face of Sam Hornish Jr. With a new team and a new wife, the clean-shaven look is now a requirement.
For the IRL's only two-time champion and youngest open-wheel champion ever, shaving was an easy choice because of all he got in return. It's also the smallest adjustment he's had to make this year.
Hornish left Panther Racing after winning 11 races and two season titles in three years in the yellow Pennzoil car. He moved into the cockpit of one of Roger Penske's cars, joining the team for which his childhood heroes drove.
Then this month, a week after the Indianapolis 500, Hornish married his girlfriend, Crystal. The wedding was just shy of the fourth anniversary of their first date, and they spent the first part of their honeymoon in a motor coach parked on the infield at Texas Motor Speedway.
Placed fourth
In his first race as a married man, Hornish was fourth. That was his only finish better than 15th in the four races -- including another disappointing day at Indianapolis -- since winning at Miami-Homestead in his Penske debut Feb. 29.
"Hopefully, it will be able to turn around our season a little bit," Hornish said about the Texas race. "Indy was kind of heartbreaking. We had a car that was fast, we were able to lead."
Hornish finally led some laps at Indianapolis, but came up short on the track where he wants to win most and has never finished better than 14th.
After a rare pit problem cost track position, he was involved in a crash working his way back through the field halfway through the race and finished 26th.
When he changed teams, Hornish made a big deal about the chance to finally win at Indianapolis. Penske has a record 13 wins at the Brickyard, including those by Hornish heroes like Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan.
Focus on season title
Another shot at Indy will have to wait until next May. So the focus now is on trying to win another season title. The strong finish at Texas pushed Hornish to seventh in season points, 91 behind leader Tony Kanaan, with 11 races left.
"I told the guys I was out farther than this last year and still had a chance going into the last race," Hornish said. "But I'd rather lead from start to finish and not have to worry about it."
Hornish struggled last year until Chevrolet introduced a new engine. His only three wins and two runner-up finishes came in the first six races after the engine change leading into the season finale.
When two-time CART champion and then-defending Indianapolis 500 winner Gil de Ferran decided last summer to retire, Penske was able to replace him with another two-time open-wheel champion. And Hornish, who will turn 25 on July 2, already has an IndyCar Series-high 12 career wins.
"We really hadn't planned it the way it turned out," said Tim Cindric, president of Penske Racing.
Noticed similarities
Cindric said he's noticed similarities between how Hornish drives and Penske runs his multiple businesses.
"He certainly is someone who thinks ahead. He does it with regard to anticipation, not reaction," Cindric said. "We see that's why he's so successful. Looking at when he was probably our biggest competitor, now we understand why maybe we lost some of the races that we lost."
Hornish and his new teammate, two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, are almost complete opposites off the track. On it, they are proven winners pushing each other.
"He's a great guy, a great talent," said Castroneves, who finished just behind Hornish in the 2002 title chase and is third in points this season. "I'm learning a lot with him, and he's a good thing for me. I want to beat him as hard as anybody, and he wants to beat me as hard as anybody."
Even before they raced together, Castroneves helped teach Hornish the first Penske lesson. When Hornish first visited the Penske shop last year, Castroneves and de Ferran gave him a razor and some shaving cream so that he could adhere to a longtime team rule.
Hornish's fiancee, however, had already issued a similar directive.
"She had already told me I was going to have a hair cut and be clean-shaven for the wedding," Hornish said.
Driving for Penske just gave him a head start.