Hornish tops practice despite crash

Hornish and the No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Honda/Dallara were clocked at 15.7520 seconds - 171.407 mph - around the 0.75-mile RIR oval before his contact with the wall in Turn 4 brought an early end to the session and forced his crew to begin preparing the backup car.

"I feel bad for the crew," Hornish said. "They gave me a great car all day. We'll regroup for practice tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get the backup car as dialed in as the primary one was this afternoon."

Hornish was trailed closely by Andretti Green Racing teammates Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan. Andretti recorded a lap of 169.315 mph, while Kanaan was clocked at 169.212 mph.

"I really enjoy this place," Andretti said of his first visit to Richmond. "It's definitely a driver's track, which I love. It's a driver-engineer track, where you need to work. You really have to drive the car here."

Scott Sharp (168.674 mph) and Dario Franchitti (168.569 mph) rounded out the top five.

A total of 2,058 laps were turned with Eddie Cheever Jr. recording 155 laps, the most of the 19 drivers in the four-hour test.

Pos  Driver              Time      Speed    Laps
 1.  Sam Hornish Jr.     15.7520   171.407   130
 2.  Marco Andretti      15.9466   169.315   104
 3.  Tony Kanaan         15.9563   169.212   105
 4.  Scott Sharp         16.0072   168.674   136
 5.  Dario Franchitti    16.0172   168.569   116
 6.  Bryan Herta         16.0209   168.530    98
 7.  Kosuke Matsuura     16.0879   167.828   128
 8.  Helio Castroneves   16.0999   167.703   149
 9.  Ed Carpenter        16.1072   167.627   102
10.  Dan Wheldon         16.1089   167.609   126
11.  Buddy Rice          16.1760   166.914    77
12.  Tomas Scheckter     16.2814   165.833   121
13.  Scott Dixon         16.2978   165.667    88
14.  Vitor Meira         16.3148   165.494   100
15.  Jeff Simmons        16.4426   164.208    81
16.  Danica Patrick      16.4961   163.675    91
17.  Felipe Giaffone     16.5697   162.948   104
18.  Eddie Cheever Jr.   16.5747   162.899   155
19.  Buddy Lazier        16.9070   159.697    47