Hornish eager to run new Chevy

The IRL took the unprecedented decision to allow Chevrolet to swap over to the engine designed by Ford-owned Cosworth, because of the manufacturer's struggles compared to the Japanese giants Toyota and Honda, who switched over to the IRL from CART this season. Hornish's Panther Racing team will run the new unit in the next race at Michigan International Speedway, with other Chevy teams making the switch in subsequent events.

"For what we've seen in testing, I think the new Chevy engine will put us real close," said Hornish, who was the first driver to run the Cosworth unit on-track. "We've been very happy with the way everything is going, and real proud that Chevrolet did what they had to do to put us in a position to be competitive and win races."

After winning the last two IRL titles, Hornish has struggled with his underpowered engine this year, with a best result so far of fourth at Richmond. Hornish said that Panther has worked hard to develop the set-up on its Dallara car, and is ready to exploit the extra power he anticipates from the new unit.

"We've worked real hard this year making sure that we had good handling cars because we knew that when Chevrolet got us the horsepower we had to have the car to be able to win races. We know what it takes to make this car fast, and hopefully we'll prove that next week in Michigan."