Hornish worried about qualifying

Hornish's entry is not in the top 35 in the owner point standings and he will have to be quick enough in qualifying to be able to grab one of the eight remaining spots on the grid for Sunday's race, which will be contested between him and another 13 drivers.

The former IRL and Indy 500 champion will face his first big test on Friday when he completes his qualifying run after only one hour and a half of practice at New Hampshire. He will face the same situation in the other Car of Tomorrow events he is planning to compete in this year.

"We're going to try to run all the CoT races obviously," said Hornish. "We have to qualify for every race that we want to run. We go to Loudon this weekend with the hopes to make it into the race.

"Qualifying is all we're worried about, if we make it into the race we'll worry about that when the times comes.

"Hopefully on Sunday I'll be actually racing instead of watching the race at home. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to all five of these CoT race and there's maybe the possibility of getting into some other ones depending on how the effort is going."

Hornish has said his transition to stock cars has not been an easy one. So far he has competed in eight Busch Series races and one ARCA event, and has also completed hundreds of miles of testing.

He was at Talladega this week getting his third CoT test in preparation for October's race at the 2.66-mile oval, but his speeds were probably not yet at the level he is seeking.

"Definitely it's a tough transition. It's a lot different that what we run," said Hornish. "It's one of those things that's going to take some time to transition, to learn the car. I feel that I've been very lucky to have testing over the last year, also run some Busch races and an ARCA race.

"I feel that I've got a pretty good idea of what's it's going to be like to try to get into the Cup races."

The 28-year-old said that if Dario Franchitti finally races in the Nextel Cup replacing David Stremme in the No. 40 Ganassi Dodge, the Scotsman would have a great advantage over him next year as his car would have a guaranteed place on the grid for the first six races thanks to its status in the owner standings.

"The good thing about Dario's position is that if he goes to the No. 40 car, he's top-35 in the points, he doesn't have to worry about qualifying for the first couple of races," Hornish added.

"That's a thing that if we decided to go full time racing, we would have to basically start from scratch and qualify our way in and get ourselves in the top 35 in points and be able to not have to worry about qualifying on speed."

Hornish is scheduled to attempt to qualify for at least five of the ten races of the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

After next weekend, he will try to make the field at Dover, Talladega, Martinsville and Phoenix, where he made his stock car debut a year ago in a Busch Series race.