(Milwaukee, WI.) – Ron Hornaday got the monkey off his back and captured his first victory of 2004 in the Alan Kulwicki Memorial 250.  It was Hornaday’s fourth career NASCAR Busch Series win and his second with Richard Childress Racing.  The victory also added Hornaday’s name to a short list of drivers who have won both a NASCAR Truck Series race and a NASCAR Busch Series event at The Milwaukee Mile.

The weekend started off about as good as it finished.  The ACDelco team unloaded chassis No. 36, which was the same “drop-snout” car that Hornaday had run at Richmond International Raceway.  While the team struggled at RIR with the car, it came to life this weekend.  Hornaday was third fastest during the first hour of practice in Milwaukee.  He fell back to fifth when the practice ended, but the team was very pleased with the way the car handled.

The Milwaukee weekend was set up as a “one day show”, so both practice and qualifying was held during the day and then the cars were impounded for the night race.  That meant the qualifying setup and the race setup was exactly the same.  Butch Hylton and the RCR crew made sure the car was loose enough to start the race, but not too loose for qualifying.  Hornaday posted the 10th fastest speed in qualifying, as the car was too loose to go for the pole.  But the veteran driver thought it would be perfect in the race, when the cooler night time temperatures would tighten the track.  David Stremme won his first career Busch Pole award.

At the drop of the green flag, Hornaday charged towards the front.  He made his way into the top-five and battled for fourth with Mike Bliss.  As the race stayed green, the ACDelco Chevrolet tightened up and Hornaday fell back to seventh.  Shane Hmiel set a blistering pace right out of the gate.  Hmiel had lapped nearly half the field in the first 50 laps.  With Hornaday’s Monte Carlo pushing in the turns and Hmiel blistering the field, Hylton decided to short pit and brought the “blue deuce” in for a green flag stop on lap 77.  The ACDelco crew changed all four tires and made a major wedge adjustment and sent Hornaday back out.  As Hornaday blended in on the backstretch, Johnny Sauter made contact with Casey Atwood and sent Atwood hard into the turn one wall.  The caution waved on the track and Hornaday was caught one lap down to the leaders in 25^th position.  It looked like bad luck would cost Hornaday again.

The leaders made their yellow flag pit stop and Hornaday stayed out, putting him on the tail end of the lead lap.  On the restart, Hornaday pulled out to a decent lead on Stremme and Hmiel, but everyone knew he would need a caution to hold them off.  He got just that.  On lap 83, Tony Raines slowed on the front stretch with an engine problem bringing out the caution and putting Hornaday back on the lead lap.  The ACDelco Chevy made its way to pit road and got four fresh Goodyear Eagles and returned to action.

The race up front went back and fourth between Stremme and Hmiel.  Although both cars raced up front, their dominance was not as apparent.  Hornaday aggressively charged his way into the top-five.  The leaders continued to beat and bang on each other swapping the top spot several times.  As they raced hard, Hornaday began to settle into a groove and save his tires.  He ran fourth for several laps just following the top two and Jason Keller in third.  It was almost un-Hornaday like.  Watching the hard charging driver of the ACDelco Chevrolet turn into a strategic virtuoso was almost surreal.  With 10 laps to go, Hornaday drove past Jason Keller for third.  With just seven to go, Hornaday drove under Hmiel for the lead and drove away for the win.  Stremme got past Hmiel as well and Keller took third.  The win moved Hornaday closer to the top-five in the championship point standings. Hornaday now sits seventh, just 22 points out of fourth

In victory lane, an excited Hornaday thanked Richard Childress for giving him the opportunity to drive his cars and ACDelco for being the best sponsor in the series.  Both the crew of the ACDelco Chevy and the Reese’s Chevy joined Hornaday in the winner’s circle for the celebration.  It was a great night for the “Real Car Guys”! 

The next race for the NASCAR Busch Series is next Friday night, July 2nd at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fl.