Circuit City 250 - Rookie Friday Quotes

Raybestos Rookie Sam Hornish Jr. visited with members of the media this afternoon at Richmond International Raceway. Should Hornish Jr. qualify for tonight’s race, he will become the first driver to compete in both an IndyCar and NASCAR Busch Series race at Richmond.

In six Busch Series starts, Hornish Jr.’s best finish is a 15th-place effort this past March at Atlanta (race No. 5).

SAM HORNISH, JR., No. 12 MOBIL 1 DODGE: COMMENT ON THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING THE FIRST DRIVER TO COMPETE IN BOTH INDYCAR AND NASCAR RACES AT RICHMOND. “That’s pretty exciting. I didn’t know that was even a possibility. I’m really looking forward to today’s race. I think we were 22nd in final practice. Obviously it’s a little bit of an adjustment to come here in a stock car but I really enjoy the learning process and trying to pick up as many new things as we can and put them to good use. Hopefully we can get to the point where we start getting some top-10 finishes and getting opportunities to win races. I think that’s going to be a big learning process for us. But I’m just excited that we have another opportunity here that Mobil 1 has given us that opportunity to go to these races and to learn and try to figure out if we can make it to victory lane here. We’ll see what happens.”

DOES IT HELP YOU TO HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE AT RICHMOND? “Definitely anywhere you can go to that you have experience in a car, whether it’s a stock car, IndyCar, you obviously have an idea of what the track layout is, where some of the bumps are, what to expect with it. Plus if you go to a place that you’ve won at in the past you always feel like you have a little bit better of an opportunity to come into the race and hopefully do better.”

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE BRICKYARD 400? “I don’t know. I think that’s kind of a long shot for us, especially with how much of a process it would be to be able to go in there and to do that, to have the cars prepared and the crew around and things like that. I think that would be pretty tough but I haven’t got an absolute no yet so I don’t know if we will or not [laughs]. But I’d say it looks like that’ll probably be something that hopefully will come somewhere in the future but probably not this year.”

COMMENT ON THE DIFFERNCES BETWEEN THE TWO. “Definitely there’s a lot of difference between the two cars. The Indy cars, there’s obviously a little bit more speed there but you can’t bump at all as opposed to this. That’s probably the worst thing about it is the fact that somebody can take you out of the race without taking themselves but probably the best thing is that if you do touch the wall just a little bit, make a miscalculation with these cars you can keep going and it’s not the end of your day like it would be in an Indy car so there’s definitely positives and negatives to both of ‘em. It’s fun learning all the new nuances of the stock car versus having 100 IndyCar starts, I pretty much know what those cars feel like and what they’re going to be like day-to-day.”

CAN YOU GIVE A SUMMATION OF YOUR SEASON SO FAR? “Both Indy car and my races that I’ve had we feel like we should have done better. The IndyCar program for sure we felt like we should have been in the top-three in all four races but whether we’ve made a mistake or bad timing or whatever it might be, we haven’t had the success over there that we’d like to. But we know there’s still a lot more races to go this year. Indy is the big race for us over there. As far as the Busch program goes, the same kind of thing. We know that there is a lot brighter days ahead of us this year and there’s a lot of things that we should be able to do well and be able to get through a little bit better without having so many problems. We’ll see what we can do and just keep our heads up and keep working at it.”

WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO BEAT THE TARGET TEAM AND WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO REPEAT AS THE 500 WINNER? “We feel like we’ve got an awesome opportunity to go back in there and give ourselves another opportunity to win the 500. Exactly how everything is going to play out is hard to tell because we haven’t had any tests there so far this year but we feel with the strength that we had last year that we ought to be able to go in there and run towards the front. As far as beating Dan and Scott, it’s been a little bit tough this year. They did away with morning warm-ups and last year all the times when we didn’t want any more practice and thought we had way too much practice and everybody catch up to us, this year we have tended to need it. I think that no matter what happens, you always have to be able to adjust to what it’s like. The race last weekend at Kansas, we were just terrible at the beginning of the race. We looked at what we thought we needed to be as far as where the car needed to be and we were totally off and didn’t end up getting the kind of result that we wanted. But we feel like they’ve been a little bit better at just hitting the nail on the head right off the bat where we definitely could have done a little bit better job in the first couple of races this year. It’s a long season yet to go.”

YOU QUALIFY ALMOST 50 MILES PER HOUR FASTER IN AN IRL CAR HERE THAN IN A BUSCH CAR. DOES IT FEEL THAT MUCH FASTER? “Somebody asked me earlier today ‘So what’s the difference? You guys are about two seconds faster with the Indy car?’ I said about seven is the difference. You know, I’ve said in the past that a lot of times it’s hard to accurately describe the difference between the cars. The Indy car a lot of times feels like driving a Corvette and the stock car feels more like driving a pickup truck. Imagine that you’re going to set your cruise control at 60 miles per hour and try to turn into your driveway. It’s pretty fast and almost out of control for both of them. Once you’ve made a mistake they both feel way too fast. There’s a lot of differences, obviously with the Indy car we just brake a little bit here but not much. This is going from 170 down to just over 100 miles per hour, and that, you don’t take as much speed off. We’ve only got 22 cars out there as opposed to 43 like we’re going to have. They both seem pretty fast whenever you’re out there.”

IS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ATTITUDE OF THE DRIVERS? “I think one of the biggest differences is the fact that you come into this race, at least with the Busch race, is that you have a lot of guys that are Cup guys and they’re not necessarily running for points over here so it’s all about winning the race so they probably give you a little lesser plus you have guys in here that are trying to become Cup drivers that are doing whatever it takes to be able to get their name out there and get somebody to look at ‘em. I’d say that there’s probably a little bit less room given in the Busch Series than there is in the Cup series even as compared to the Indy car. That’s something that you really need to get used to as well. I just try to consider that and the fact that a lot of these races for me is just to go out there and to get another 250 laps of experience. It’s not necessarily about winning the race. It’s about learning more about the car to give us an opportunity somewhere down the road to win the race. Sometimes you’ve got to learn to pick and choose when you’re going to have any kind of a battle with somebody because a lot of times it just doesn’t matter as much here so if they get into you, no big deal. They don’t have to race against you tomorrow and maybe not next week even. I’ve said for a long time that I think Indy cars at this point have a little bit too much downforce for most of the tracks that we run at. When we run here it’s not flat out. It’s definitely harder to drive but if we go to a place like Texas, it’s more like comparing these cars to what you’re going to have as far as Talladega or Daytona. It’s more about your drafting ability and waiting to make the move at the right time. But I have a great understanding now for the differences and I’m just getting a lot more experience at running it and feeling what the cars are like and not having very much downforce and having a whole lot more weight in the cars sliding around. It’s two totally different things between the cars. They are so much different and a lot of people have asked me ‘Do you think you’ll get confused which car you’re in?’ There’s so much difference there’s no way you can get confused. It’s just a lot about just getting out there and getting more time in it because most of the times we go to places in the Indy car and we’re trying to take absolute amount of downforce that you can get off the car. And this is always about how much grip you can get. You’re always trying to find more and more grip.”

Raybestos Rookie Bobby Santos plans to make his Busch Series debut in tonight’s Circuit City 250. Santos posted the 24th-best overall time in the final practice session earlier today. He plans to compete in 10 races this season.

BOBBY SANTOS, No. 91 RILEY TECHNOLOGIES TOYOTA: WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BUSCH SERIES? “So far so good. I’m just getting comfortable with the car. I’ve got a little experience at this racetrack so that’s helping a little bit. We’ve got a good car and I think we’ll qualify good and race good.”

WHAT IS YOUR RACING BACKGROUND? “All open wheel racing. This is my first year racing stock cars. I’m from Massachusetts so I raced New England modifieds. The last couple of years I’ve been doing USAC sprint cars and midgets.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE CARS AND BUSCH CARS? “About 2,000 pounds [laughs]. These are just heavier cars and getting used to the way that you save the tires. The Busch Series is a lot different than the way you save tires on those cars and it’s just a totally different style of driving, I guess.”

A LOT OF DRIVERS COME TO NASCAR FROM USAC. “I just think those cars, they are powerful racecars and they are light racecars and you learn how to take care of your tires, take care of your car. I think there is talent everywhere. That’s just the way it seemed to work out the last couple of years that a lot of USAC drivers ended up in this series.”

WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU? “We all come here to win the race. I want to finish and just run as good as we can.”

HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN IN THE TWO PRACTICE SESSIONS THIS MORNING? “Oh, a lot. Every lap I’m learning. Experience, I guess.”