Hornish set to make Nextel Cup debut
Former IRL and Indy 500 champion Sam Hornish Jr is set to make his NASCAR Nextel Cup debut next weekend at Loudon, New Hampshire attempting to qualify for the first race of the Chase driving a third car for Penske Racing
Hornish made his Busch Series debut last year at Phoenix and has competed since then in eight races in NASCAR's second division. Despite a number of incidents and crashes, he scored a 15th place at Atlanta earlier this year. He also finished second in an ARCA race at Michigan in June.
He recently tested one of Penske's Car of Tomorrow cars for the first time at Memphis and is scheduled to try to make the field for the five CoT events remaining in the Nextel Cup calendar. He is testing Monday and Tuesday at Talladega Superspeedway in preparation for the Nextel Cup race that will take place there on October 7.
"I'm jumping right back into a race car tomorrow and Tuesday at Talladega and then we're going to Loudon so I'm excited to be able to jump right back into a race car," said Hornish. "I'm very lucky to be in this position thanks to Roger. It's good to have options."
Hornish will be taking this year's events as a familiarization period with NASCAR's top division before possibly switching to it full-time in 2008.
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