The best and the worst: Sam Hornish Jr. on his career highs and lows

As we approach the 20th anniversary of his epic Indy 500 triumph, we asked Sam Hornish Jr. for the great moments and moments that grate from his championship-winning career.

BEST CAREER DECISION

Going to Panther in 2001 wasn’t a decision: it was the only opportunity I had! And what it paid was less than my death or disability insurance! I was already at a $14,000 loss for the year, so I had to make it work. Fortunately, we were able to do that [two championships and 11 wins in three seasons] and that made it hard to leave. But my heroes growing up were Rick Mears, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser Jr. – all Penske guys, so winning Indy and a third championship, this time with Roger Penske, made that my best career decision. It broke my heart to leave Panther at the end of ’03, but you’ve got to see the big picture and all the other things that Roger presents. How do you say no to that?

WORST CAREER DECISION

Unfortunately, and I hate to say it because I don’t want to offend anybody, it was driving for Richard Petty Motorsports in 2015. It was an honor, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it. The sounding board that I had at the time were saying, “If you don’t sign the deal to go back full-time in the Cup Series, you’re never going to get an opportunity again.” But my argument was that if it’s not a good opportunity, it won’t showcase what I’ve learned in the last seven years – of failing miserably in Cup, before gaining experience in the Nationwide Series [now O’Reilly Auto Parts Series], and getting some wins on the board. But I listened to advice and signed with RPM, although I didn’t feel great about it because although there were good people there, they weren’t good cars.

Then we get to Daytona, and Kyle Busch badly injures his legs. I knew the Monster people who were sponsoring his car because we’d shared that entry the previous year, and they were asking if I could get out of my contract, because Kyle was going to have to sit out 10 Cup races. But no, I couldn’t get out of the RPM deal. I think driving Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas in Cup and Nationwide, even as a sub, could have made all the difference to the trajectory of my career. Even in the one-offs I did with Gibbs, Richard Childress and Penske the next few years in Nationwide, we were strong. [Victories in Iowa and Mid-Ohio, and four other top fours].

In 2013, we’d lost the Nationwide Series by three points at Homestead, and then in 2017, Roger brings me back to the team because he wants to win the team owner’s championship. My last drive as a professional, at Homestead, we lost the brakes, I finished second, but we won the owners’ championship. I stood on stage and held the trophy, and walked out of the racetrack as happy as I could be. How many others get the chance to be that content with their final ride? It didn’t end with a hospital visit, with a crash, with a mechanical retirement; it ended with helping Roger achieve a trophy. I’m good with that.

GREATEST RACE

The 2003 Indy 500. It was the first year of Honda and Toyota in the IRL, and I reckon our Chevrolet Gen. III engine was down about 75hp. It was my third attempt with Panther: in ’01 I got frustrated with Jimmy Vasser on a restart and I’d spun; in ’02, was trying to catch Tomas Scheckter and I bumped the wall and bent a toelink, and Scheckter crashed about five laps later anyway. So all I’d needed to do was get to the end and we’d have won. So now in ’03, that was my main mission: make it to the checkered flag! But now I was at a power disadvantage, and we’d qualified down in 18th, so I couldn’t just drive at 95 percent for the first stints: I had to drive at 100 percent but perfect. Well, we got up to fifth and the next closest Chevy was two laps down and then my engine blew five laps from the end. But nothing I did to win the race in 2006 was any better than what I did in ’03. With that power deficit, I had to time passes just right, because if I drafted up and spied a hole to dive in, I had to get it done. If I missed an opportunity and the door closed, and I had to downshift, I was going to lose three spots on the next straight. So I did that, and still I had to watch the end of the race from trackside. But in my head, I can say it was a day when I got everything precisely right… and was classified 15th!

MOST DISAPPOINTING RACE

I have way more than you can imagine, but I’ll try to sort through it. The first one I think of is the Nationwide Series finale in 2013. The last 28 laps were under caution, which allowed the No. 3 [Austin Dillon] to stay close enough to us that he won the championship and beat us by three points. But I wasn’t as disappointed at the end of that as I should have been because I was 34 and I thought I’d have other opportunities. I never let the lows get me too low.

The Ford EcoBoost 300 in 2013 ranks among Hornish Jr.'s most disappointing races. Photo credit: Robert Laberge/Getty Images

So the most disappointing was a race I wasn’t even in, the 2011 IndyCar race in Las Vegas. I had the opportunity to make a comeback to open-wheel as a one-off, to try and win the $5m jackpot. But I said no. Instead I watched it, and saw one of the few drivers who I considered a genuine friend, Dan Wheldon, lose his life. I decided at that point that I was never getting back in an IndyCar. I looked at my little girls who were about the same age as Dan’s boys, and as much as I would have loved to go back to Indy and try for another win, I can’t take that chance. Dan was someone I loved to be around on-track but particularly off-track.

MOST SIGNIFICANT WIN

It has to be Indy 500 in ’06, especially the way the race played out, passing Marco Andretti on the run to the line. I mean, you want to win by two laps if you can, but that wouldn’t have got any of the reruns and publicity that we got over the past 20 years. To have Mario shake my hand and say, “You’re a bad man, Mr. Hornish!” Doesn’t get any better than that!

The funny thing is, I don’t think I appreciated at first that it was going to be one of those classics, because so many of my wins on other tracks were kinda crazy-close. In fact, of all the photo-finishes or very close, we only lost one – Michigan 2003. I was at the funeral of one of the Panther guys recently, and the rest of us got to talking about the old days, and that race came up. And someone said, “Oh yeah, the one where we broke the valve-spring?” I said, “What?! For 23 years, I always thought I had misjudged that, because Alex Barron beat us by nothing [0.0121s] so maybe I should have gone down a gear.”

So now I can rest a bit easier! Michigan was always the place we used to attend when I was a kid, and I never thought I’d get the opportunity to race there. But I did and… I never won there. I got top-fives there in at least three series but never the win. And that one was so close, man.

WHAT WIN WOULD YOU MOST LIKE ON YOUR RESUME?

I’m going to pick a NASCAR one because when Roger first moved asked me to move from IndyCar to NASCAR, it was to help change the culture to a championship culture. He had already moved the IndyCar team down to North Carolina I think a year earlier, so the operation was all under one roof. That was a big step. But Tim Cindric [then team president at Team Penske] told me that whatever Penske’s success in IndyCar, in NASCAR a lot of people regarded joining Penske as a stop-off point on their way to Roush, or Joe Gibbs or Hendrick. At that point, they hadn’t won the NASCAR championship, nor the Daytona 500 nor the Brickyard 400.

So I would have loved to have won the Daytona 500 for him for that reason, and also because it would have put my name alongside Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt as the only people to have won Daytona 500 and Indy 500. But I’m going to pick the Coke 600 as one I’d want even more because I’d be the only one to have done that. Also, I love Charlotte: I used to race on the infield in go-karts and dream of racing on the big track.

BEST TEAMMATE

The last year I ran Formula Ford 2000, David Besnard and I had a lot of fun off the racetrack, but I also learned a lot from him. He was really talented, a little older and I soaked up everything I could from him. He won the championship, but it was also a year of growth for me and I applied a lot of what I learned from David to my next move to Formula Atlantic. And that’s significant because although I had a lot of teammates who were uber-talented, I don’t know if it’s because I’m rock-headed or incapable of learning, but a lot of times it felt like I made them better and I didn’t learn anything from them! But with David it was different.

WORST TEAMMATE

I think when you’re the quiet kid who doesn’t say much, people are going to take advantage of you, and any teammate is, will at some point put you in a situation where you have to speak to the team owner. At Milwaukee in 2005, I got alongside Helio [Castroneves] and he tried to shut the door with me already in it! He ended up in the wall, and I won – I had to after that! Next race, Roger called us together for a meeting and said: “Helio feels you race him harder than you race anyone else. I said, “I feel exactly the same way about him!” But we eventually cleared the air somewhat.

In 2013, I’m racing for the Nationwide Series championship full-time, and through the year, I have AJ Allmendinger, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski in the No. 22 as my teammates, all trying to help Roger win the owner’s championship. They’re all really good, but three of them would only give me two gnat-hair’s more than I need on a restart from the inside, and so I get loose so I fall back. And like we said, I missed out on that year’s championship by three points.

My point is, I never had any despicable teammates, but none of them would do you any favors. I think the only one at an IndyCar or NASCAR level who never put me in a bad situation – while we were teammates – was Brad.

BEST RACECAR

The Dallara-Chevy I had at Homestead in 2002. I took pole, had a lap on the field for a while. Everyone had said with Penske joining the Indy Racing League that the rest of us would struggle. But I had Pancho Carter spotting for me, Andy Brown as my engineer, and we dominated that race in Homestead – and believe me, you didn’t get many like that in that era. And as it happens, the guys standing beside me on the podium were Gil de Ferran and Helio, the Penske guys. So I think that also helps make it a standout for me.

Hornish Jr. says the Dallara-Chevy he drove at Homestead in 2002 was the best car of his career. Photo credit: Brian Cleary/Getty Images

WORST RACECAR

The one that gave me a defeated feeling before I even started was the kart I had in the world championships in France in 1996. The engines I had in practice were half a second faster than the one I had for the race. I knew I wouldn’t make the Final, and there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it.

BEST TRACK YOU’VE RACED ON

Indy. It means everything to me. I grew up there. My mom went there when she was eight months pregnant with me in 1979. Rick won, and mom says I was shifting gears the whole race! Going there later as a child, I immediately had this dream of just qualifying for the race one day. It became my end all, be all. To then go and win it… I mean, if I never achieved anything ever again, my face is still on the Borg-Warner Trophy for all time. I really aim to be a good husband and dad, but as far as career goals, winning the Indy 500 was it. When I went and visited the museum after they reopened it last year, I went to the race day reenactment section and honestly I was a bit teary-eyed. When I got to race it, I probably didn’t appreciate it enough because I was too focused; now that I’m older, I revisit and feel like I appreciate it again as much I did when I was the kid in the grandstand.

WHAT TRACK WOULD YOU LOVE TO RACE ON?

One of my assets as a racecar driver was my memory, and in the late ’90s I played a racing game based on the 1967 Formula 1 season. I loved the challenge of trying to learn 14 miles of the Nurburgring. It must be amazing in real life; I’d like to try it.

WHAT CAR FROM HISTORY WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE RACED?

The Blue Crown Spark Plug Specials from the late 1940s. They came out of Chicago, but they were bought by a company in Defiance, Ohio, where I grew up. When my Dad was a kid, those cars were in the basement of this company, and his father finagled a way for him to go and sit in the car. This would have been in ’52 or ’53. So I want to drive a car that my Dad sat in over 70 years ago.

ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS IN MOTORSPORT

Everyone can be nice to you outside the car, but when the helmet’s on, it’s game on, so be prepared! I’d also say improve your memory, including learning from your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes but it’s important not to make the same ones.