Hornish out at Penske

The struggle to find Sam Hornish Jr sponsorship to run the Nationwide schedule appears to have been abandoned. Hornish was already out of the #77 ride at the Sprint Cup level but there appeared to a chance he would run the full slate of Nationwide races in the #12 following the release of Justin Allgaier.

It’s unclear how much effort was actually put into finding sponsorship for Hornish on the Nationwide Series as of the two drivers Allgaier appeared to be the hotter commodity following a forth place finish in the series last year.

There had also been a chance that Hornish would show up in the #77 to run the first five races of the 2011 Sprint schedule but that also has been put aside. According to Fox Sports the #77 Cup crew as well as the #12 Nationwide crew were merged with the #22 Nationwide and #2 Cup crews to provide support for driver Brad Keselowski in 2011.

Hornish was a three time IZOD Indy Car Champion (2001, 2002, 2006)  who won 19 races in the series. His run at NASCAR wasn’t so well as he managed just 8 top-10’s in 108 races spread over 4 years at the Cup level. He finished 29th in Cup points in 2010.

John Boarman
John Boarmanhttp://www.tireball.com
Founder and Owner of Tireball Sports.

4 COMMENTS

  1. 4 years ago I said Sam needed to go back to Indycars. Same thing 3 years ago. And 2 years ago. And last year. And last fall. Now all the top Cup, Nationwide, Truck and Indycar rides are full and he doesn’t have a ride. He’s an open wheel guy. He’s not great with fenders. He needs to get over this experiment and slide back in an Indycar.

  2. Hey will 🙂
    Thanks for the comment. I agree that Hornish was a failed experiment by an owner hoping to strike the coals hot. Penske was hoping his indycar jewel would help him compete with the big dogs.

    Things started off wrong almost immediately. Check out his Nationwide stats. 0 top-10’s in 20 starts spread over 4 years. The guy was dropped into a cup seat without proper training or hesitation the day they both cooked up the idea.

  3. Taken from Twitter today (1/15/11)
    @burgerking25: is it true that Sam Hornish is out of Penske racing?
    @keselowski; Sam will be my nns teammate in the #12dodge
    @BSargentOKC: Did you break news?
    @keselowski No real news there Sam was my teammate last year and will remain so this year

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