| Martinsville, VA (April 6, 2001)
 Team
Conseco will use chassis 1402 this weekend in Martinsville. This
is the same car that Hornaday scored his career best finish in a
Winston Cup Car, coming home ninth in Las Vegas.
Hornaday’s
son Ronnie (known as “Three” to his fellow competitors) is
also racing at Martinsville this weekend. The younger Hornaday
is following in his father’s footsteps and will attempt to
qualify for the 150th Craftsman Truck Series event.
“I like to race at
Martinsville. It’s my kind of track. Short-track racing at its
best. You run bumper to bumper all day long. You can really
hustle a car around that place. It fits my style of driving.”
–Ron Hornaday, Team Conseco Driver
Hornaday goes from last to first in Martinsville
Martinsville, VA (April 8, 2001) - After starting 43rd in
Sunday’s Virginia 500 at Martinsville speedway, Ron Hornaday
charged from the rear of the field to lead on two separate
occasions. Only a cut tire with five laps to go prevented
Hornaday from scoring his second top-10 finish of the year.
After Philippe Lopez left Team Conseco earlier week, Fred Graves
was asked to temporarily take over the crew chief’s position.
Graves had been heading up the engineering department at Team
Conseco, but his past experience working with Hornaday made him
the obvious man for the job. From 1997 to 1998, Graves and
Hornaday combined for 13 of Hornaday’s record 25 victories and
won the championship title in their second year together.
Hornaday started the 500-lap event in the 43rd position, but by
lap 101 he had advanced to the front of the field and led his
first lap in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Hornaday continued
to run in the top 10 for much of the race and made his way to
the front a second time, leading a total of 24 laps during the
race.
With five laps to go in the race, the No. 14 Conseco Pontiac
shot up the track with a flat right front tire. Hornaday limped
back around the racetrack to the pits where Team Conseco’s pit
crew changed right side tires, but the race was over before he
could get back out on the track, finishing a disappointing 27th.
“How about that?” Hornaday said as he climbed out of the
Conseco Pontiac. “What a race. I can’t say enough about this
team. They worked their guts out this weekend. We were junk on
Friday. Fred and the guys put their heads together and put a car
under me I could race with. Fred made the right calls in the
pits and the guys did an awesome job during pit stops. They were
on all day today. To start dead last and be leading in a hundred
laps says a lot about this race team. We’re coming back
around. We just need a little luck. I know we didn’t finish as
well as we ran, but I’m real happy with the way we performed
today.”
FOX will air the Talladega 500 from Talladega, Alabama live on
Sunday, April 22 with television coverage starting at 1:00PM
E.D.T.
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