It wasn’t even that bad of a weekend.  Hornaday finished 17^th in the race and in the

process moved into fourth in the NASCAR Busch Series  points.  But what made everyone so disappointed was that no one could figure out why the car wasn’t any better than it was.  To the credit of the ACDelco crew, they threw everything at it.  I mean everything in hopes of finding a setup that the car liked.  But the magical setup was never found.

Hornaday qualified 27^th for the Texas 300 and his Richard Childress Racing teammate Johnny Sauter was just ahead of him in 26^th.  In fact the two RCR cars were 30^th and 31^st respectfully in final happy hour practice as well.  Whatever was missing from the ACDelco machine was also not found on the PayDay car.  The two crews huddled up to think of a plan for race day, and a hope of better performance.

When the green flag dropped, Hornaday made his traditional charge to the front.  He picked up 13 positions before the caution flew on lap 32 for a crash between Bobby Hamilton, Jr. and Joe Aramendia.  “I just a little loose off the corner,” Hornaday told his crew chief Rick Viers.   The crew made a small air pressure adjustment to help Hornaday off the corner, but it was the start of the car having a mind of its own.  On the restart, Hornaday came across the radio and said, “the car is loose everywhere!”  The adjustment, which should have made the car tighter on corner exit, had instead made the car loose.  The crew looked at each other with a baffled expression.  It was apparent that it would be a long day.  But thanks to several cautions and two red flags, the day turned out to be even longer.  Despite trying nearly every combination of adjustments, the ACDelco car just would not drive correctly. 

On lap 185, Mike Bliss go turned in front of the field heading into turn one and stacked up the field.  Hornaday tried to get slowed down, but ran into the back of Michael Waltrip and damaged the right front of the car.  The crew made repairs to the No. 2 Chevrolet once the red flag was lifted and Hornaday finished the race under power in 17^th, one lap down.  Joe Nemechek won the Texas 300, his second victory of 2003.  Scott Riggs finished second, Shane Hmiel was third, Todd Bodine was fourth and rookie Chad Blount was fifth.  Hornaday moved into fourth place in points and is now just 152 points behind leader Todd Bodine.