Everyone trying to catch points leader Ron Hornaday Jr. must live the clichéd
"one race at a time." They need to chip away.
With eight races remaining in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season,
there's ample opportunity to do just that.
This weekend's race at Gateway is one of those chances, but probably not the
best.
Hornaday has been strong at Gateway, racking up some of the top statistics in
the series after winning there last year and finishing second in 2007.
Hornaday owns series-best marks in Driver Rating (116.1), Average Running
Position (6.6), Fastest Laps Run (73) and Laps Led (207) since the inception of
Loop Data in 2005.
Those closest to Hornaday don't come close to matching those stats. Second-place
Matt Crafton has a Gateway Driver Rating of 83.2 after finishing in the top 10
only once in the past four races. Third-place Mike Skinner is closer, with a
Driver Rating of 94.9. Skinner finished seventh at Gateway last season and has
led laps in each of the last two Gateway races.
Probably the driver with the best shot at keeping Hornaday from Victory Lane is
Todd Bodine, who sits fifth in the points, 478 points out.
Bodine has four starts at Gateway, all of them top-10 finishes and three of them
top fives. In that span, Bodine has an average finish of 4.0, a Driver Rating of
110.3, an Average Running Position of 8.3, 47 Fastest Laps Run, a Laps in the
Top 15 percentage of 86.4% and a series-best Pass Differential (passes minus
times passed) of +120.
