Ron Hornaday will be going to Las Vegas, Nevada this
week in hopes of hitting it rich at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS).
In seven previous Truck Series starts at LVMS, Hornaday has posted four top-five
and five top-10 finishes while completing 1129 of 1130 possible laps (99.9
percent). In last year’s race at LVMS, Hornaday started 15th before working his
way into the top 10 for most of the race. A tire problem with a handful of laps
remaining relegated the team to a 22nd-place finish.Seven To Go:
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is one of only seven tracks on the current NASCAR Truck
Series schedule that Ron Hornaday does not have a win. The others are Daytona
(Fla.) International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway of Southern California,
Michigan International Speedway, Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, Talladega
(Ala.) Superspeedway and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. In his five wins in 2008,
three have come at tracks where Hornaday had not won at before (Kansas, Texas
and Gateway).
From The Driver’s Seat – Quotes From Ron Hornaday:
On racing at Las Vegas: “I’ve had some good runs at Las
Vegas over the years. I like the track; it’s similar to racing at Texas, Atlanta
and Charlotte. They all have the same layout. We put together a decent run last
year, but had a tire issue late in the race that cost us a good finish.
“Our mile-and-a-half program has been great this year. I don’t see why we
cannot have another good run on this type of track. Rick Ren (crew chief) and
all the guys on this Camping World Chevrolet Silverado team do an awesome job
week in and week out.
Atop The Pit Box – Quotes From Rick Ren:
On racing at Las Vegas: “Las Vegas is a fast race track. It
has the same feel as other 1.5-mile tracks that we’ve run at and we have been
really good on those tracks this year. We won at Kansas and Texas and had really
solid runs at Atlanta and Charlotte. You can carry a lot of speed out of the
turns at Las Vegas and it’s a place where it’s not hard to pass.
“We need to carry this wave of momentum that we’re riding into Las Vegas and
keep doing what we’ve been doing. We had a really good day in the pits last week
at New Hampshire, but we have to be consistent. That’s what it’s going to take
to win this championship.”
Chassis No. 030 Will Make First Start at Las Vegas: Crew
chief Rick Ren will take Chassis No. 030 to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week
for the Qwik Liner Las Vegas 350. This is a brand new truck and will be raced
for the first time by Ron Hornaday on Saturday.
Previous race recap:
For the second consecutive week, Ron Hornaday and the Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI)
No. 33 Camping World Chevrolet Silverado team found themselves in victory lane
after dominating the Camping World RV Rental 200 Driven by Winnebago Industries
at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Hornaday led five times in the race for 149 of
the 200 laps, including the final 43, on the way to his 38th career NASCAR Truck
Series win and fifth of the 2008 season. Hornaday is now 74 points behind Johnny
Benson in the Truck Series point standings with seven races remaining in the
season.