Even though Ron Hornaday's streak of five consecutive NASCAR Camping World
Truck Series race victories ended Wednesday night at Bristol Motor Speedway,
don't feel too bad for the veteran racer out of the Kevin Harvick Inc. stables.
Sure, Hornaday finished third behind his most detested rival, Kyle Busch, and
Matt Crafton in the O'Reilly 200 at Bristol. And that meant The Streak was over
for Hornaday and his No. 33 Georgia Boot-sponsored Chevrolet Silverado.
But the three-time NCWTS champion left Bristol with a couple of nifty
consolation prizes: A whopping 211-point lead over Crafton with 15 of 25 Truck
Series in the books for 2009. And then there was the knowledge that the only
racer in any of NASCAR's top division with a longer win streak was Richard
Petty, who won 10 straight races in what now is known as the Sprint Cup Series
during his magical 1967 season.
Given that the most points a driver can gain or lose in any one NCWTS race is
140, Hornaday is in fabulous shape to become the first driver in series history
to claim four championships. Besides, even Hornaday and his crew chief Rick Ren
knew The Streak was finite. And given the difficulty of Bristol, Hornaday left
the track feeling just fine, thank you very much.
"Overall, winning five in a row, I have to thank of these fans and everything
that has been written," said Hornaday. "It has been a lot of fun. We will just
start all over again."
Considering Hornaday's average finish in his previous five Bristol starts was a
decidedly un-Hornaday-like 17.8, third didn't look at al bad to Hornaday.
"I told Kevin (Harvick, team co-owner) a top five here tonight would be great,"
said Hornaday. "We have such bad luck here. We run good, we just have bad luck.
Rick Ren made a great call on our only stop for this Georgia Boot Chevrolet. It
was cool. I learned a bunch. Kyle was just so dominate up top."
As for team owner Harvick, he was pretty satisfied, too, with Hornaday's
third-place run, combined with a fourth by Ryan Newman and an 11th by J.R.
Fitzpatrick in the other two KHI trucks.
"It is just incredible to see the roll that these guys have gone on," said
Harvick. "The whole team and Ron, Rick and everybody at the shop being a part of
it. These guys on the No. 4 (Fitzpatrick) and the No. 33 put each other's trucks
together. They put the No. 2 (Newman) truck together with the Nationwide crew.
It is fun to see everybody work together and winning races. You just don't ever
know when you are going to win the next one let alone five in a row, but a good
night all around for Georgia Boot and Pringles and the Fitzpatricks. Two trucks
in the top-five and three trucks in the top-11, hard to complain. This has been
one of our worst tracks for whatever reason as far as performance and to have
two trucks in the top-five is a huge accomplishment."
