Hornaday's lone victory of the 2005 season came at Atlanta. Credit: Don Bok/Motorsports Images and Archive

Hornaday prepared to step up for Chevrolet

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If Ron Hornaday has to step up in 2006 and become the leader of the Chevrolet teams in the Craftsman Truck Series, the California veteran says he's ready to do it.

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The biggest thing the Palmdale, Calif., native might have to bring to his renumbered No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet team is the expertise he's garnered in six full years in the Truck Series, during which he's won two championships and 27 races.

But more than anything, Hornaday will have to raise his performance level to where it was in the mid- to late-90s, when he left the Truck Series to venture up to the Busch and Cup levels.

His biggest obstacle in leading the Silverado parade is Dennis Setzer, who's finished second in the series three years in a row and is its only other Chevrolet branded truck in the series this year.

The teams of Hornaday, Mike Bliss, Kraig Kinser, Aric Almirola and Matt Crafton will get varying degrees of factory support. Hornaday's team owners Kevin and DeLana Harvick have yet to announce corporate sponsorship for the 33 but that doesn't affect the team's preparation.

"We are definitely focused this year," Hornaday said. "We have a new crew chief, Chris Rice and basically a whole new team."

Their goal is to return Hornaday to the pace he maintained in the first five years of the series, 1995 to 1999, when he won two titles, never finished worse than seventh in the championship and had 92 top-10 finishes in 122 starts.

The KHI group was one of 41 teams based at Daytona International Speedway this weekend for a three-day test, the second session of Preseason Thunder preparation for Speedweeks 2006 in February.

Hornaday was close enough to the front of the pack in single-truck runs to get his hopes ignited.

Inside the Numbers Ron Hornaday's NCTS career Year Races W T5 T10 1995 20 6 10 14 1996 24 4 18 23 1997 26 7 13 17 1998 27 6 16 22 1999 25 2 7 16 2002 2 1 1 1 2004 1 0 0 0 2005 25 1 7 13 Totals 150 27 72 106

"The guys don't know what to expect this year, so they are going to try some different things," Hornaday said. "I think we are going to put some Busch stuff in the truck this year to try and figure out what we got to do.

"Wally [Rogers, crew chief in 2005, now moved to KHI Busch team] tried about everything you could on the truck, and what NASCAR would let us get by with.

"At one point we had a truck that looked like it got wrapped around a telephone pole and that doesn't work, but we've gone back to basic stuff."

Hornaday said as much as the test was an on-track evaluation of his own program, the team was exploring every possible avenue, including bringing 2005 championship crew chief Gene Nead, who know works in the KHI Busch program, to Daytona to do some investigative work.

"Gene is down here, and some of the guys from the fab shop to see what the other trucks are doing, the other manufacturers," Hornaday said. "The other trucks got a new bottom half, so we are trying to keep an eye on what they are doing down here."

Hornaday's primary aim is to finish closer to the front than he managed last year, his first full season in a truck since 1999.

Even though he scored a spectacular win-by-inches at Atlanta in March, Hornaday gave another sure victory away in October when he slowed before going into a fourth turn cloud of smoke on the last lap at Memphis and was beaten by Brandon Whitt.

His feeling about finishing behind champion Ted Musgrave, Setzer and Todd Bodine was succinctly voiced at Daytona.

"Fourth sucks, so we aren't going to do that again," Hornaday said. "We ran good all year, the points just didn't fall where we wanted -- Todd Bodine seemed to pick up the last four or five races there and passed us in the point standings."

The test and the preparation for it, have Hornaday enthused.

"Chris brings a different attitude to the truck team, he's a smiley, happy guy," Hornaday said. "The guys and him worked 'til four in the morning to get the second truck ready to come down here.

"All these young kids are fired up to go racing, so it's going to be fun. We just have to keep focused and Wally had some great notes from last year, so we will just do what we have to do."

Hornaday said with a record 14 drivers winning in 2005, wins might be even harder to come by in 2006.

"Competition has gotten so good, now with these other manufactures coming in the Truck Series has changed," Hornaday said. "I remember back on the first day that they started, we had five pounds of lift instead of downforce and now these trucks are almost making 1900 pounds of downforce.

"It's come a long ways. It's all come down to motors now and who can build the best bodies, and I think it's that way in all three series.

"The competition level is really, really high. Before you had guys trying to make a name for themselves and now you have guys who have already made a name for themselves coming back and all they want to do is win trophies and take the money home."