Hornish stays committed to NASCAR

The former multiple IRL IndyCar Series Champion categorically denied he is about to give up on his NASCAR career.

Following Dario Franchitti's return to the series and Helio Castroneves's tax evasion scandal, Hornish has been linked with a possible return to IndyCars, which he says is not in the works for now.

"I think all of that is basically untrue," Hornish told reporters at Phoenix. "I don't know where we got off on the wrong foot there but it all started basically when Dario [Franchitti] decided to go and run IndyCars and then all the questions started coming on what I was going to do.

"And then obviously now there are some other things that have brought to light the fact that, you know, maybe I would go back over there.

"But I'm focused on running here and I'm focused on trying to be the best Sprint Cup driver I can be. I came over because I wanted the challenge of doing this. I wanted to see it out. I wanted to get to the point where I felt like I could win races. We're not there yet but still working on it."

Hornish says he would even consider stepping down to the Nationwide Series fulltime if he were to lose his ride in the Sprint Cup, before giving up on NASCAR. He feels a move back to IndyCars would be the easy way for him as he has already achieved even more than what he had aimed for over there.

"I've said in the past that even if I have to step down and go to a good Nationwide ride to be able to get back here to try to get to the point where I can win Sprint Cup races, I'm willing to do that before I'm going to give up before I'm going back over and just do what's comfortable because I felt like, and nothing against the IndyCar series, but I felt like I achieved more than I ever dreamed of doing over there."

Hornish is currently thirty-fifth in the drivers' standing, while his car remains outside the top-35 in the owners' standing, forcing him to qualify on time for every event.