Hornish to race Cup full-time in '08

The former IRL and Indy 500 champion will leave Penske's IRL squad to focus on his Sprint Cup career, driving the No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge and joining former Cup champion Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman in the expanded three-car operation.

"I feel like this is something that is a new and unique challenge for me," Hornish told the Associated Press. "It may or may not be the right way to look at it, but I feel like I accomplished just about everything in Indy cars. I got to do more than I ever thought I would."

Hornish made his NASCAR debut nearly a year ago at Phoenix, competing for Penske in the Busch Series. He has already made nine starts in the series with a 15th place at Atlanta last March being his best finish thus far.

He has recently attempted six times to make his Nextel Cup debut but has struggled to do so, as his entry is not among the top-35 in the owner points' standings and he has not been fast enough during qualifying to get one of the few remaining spots in the field for the non-guaranteed drivers.

His team has been considering switching the owner points from the No. 2 car of Kurt Busch to Hornish's entry, to secure him a spot on the grid for the first few races of next season. Busch could make those races automatically thanks to his former champion status, if needed, while Hornish would not have to worry about qualifying for a while.

"People always ask me why Montoya has been so successful, and the easy thing to say is because he had the (owner) points," Hornish added. "He had those first five races and he was automatically guaranteed to get that seat time.

"So if Roger wants to give me Kurt's points, I'm not going to tell him no. I'll take whatever I can get."

Hornish will make a further attempt to make his Nextel Cup debut this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway before being officially announced by Penske as their third driver for 2008.

On Friday he will be competing for a spot in the field for Sunday's race against fellow Indy 500 champion Jacques Villeneuve and former Champ Car and IRL racer Patrick Carpentier.