Hornish finds his footing at Lowe's Motor Speedway

CONCORD, N.C. -- There's something about Lowe's Motor Speedway and Sam Hornish Jr.

Maybe it was the four days of testing between the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series sessions earlier this month, or maybe the successful transition from the open-wheel ranks to stock cars is nearing.

His crew chief Chris Carrier said big things were coming, but whatever the reasoning, the former Indianapolis 500 champion has gained ground and it seemingly all happened at LMS.

Coca-Cola 600

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Kasey Kahne	Dodge
2.	Greg Biffle	Ford
3.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
4.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
5.	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet
6.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
7.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
8.	Elliott Sadler	Dodge
9.	Carl Edwards	Ford
10.	David Reutimann	Toyota
13.	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge

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First, Hornish turned in one of his most impressive performances of the season by finishing second in the Sprint Showdown and advancing his No. 77 to the All-Star Race last Saturday night. And despite a flat tire early in the race that forced an unscheduled pit stop, the Ohio native rebounded to finish seventh in the night's feature event.

This weekend in the Nationwide Series' Carquest 300 at LMS, Hornish led his first laps as a NASCAR driver. And finally, he found his career-best Cup finish Sunday night in NASCAR's longest race, a 13th-place showing in the Coca-Cola 600.

"I look at it like it took seven times for me to finish the Indy 500 on the lead lap or to finish all the miles," Hornish said. "But I was able to do [the Coca-Cola 600] on the first try and I'm really happy about that. The guys have worked really hard. We just saw the owner points and we're still out by three, but we are going to keep working away at it. We're heading in the right direction."

Hornish said his team has wanted to try different things on the No. 77 Penske Racing Dodge, but the opportunities were limited, especially for a team that is forced to race its way into the show on time and may race conservatively as a result.

"We got to try things on these test days that really helped us out," he said.

On his performance in Sunday's Cup race, Hornish said he "about put it in the wall 10 times," but was able to keep up with track conditions and avoided costly errors as the race transitioned from daylight to dark. His car improved later in the race.

"I think we were pretty good early on but we got kind of back in traffic, and then we didn't take tires on the first or second stop and the thing was just bad loose," he said.

Hornish ran in the top 10 for most of the race, but he needed to pit for fuel on the last stop of the night.

"We kind of came out right where we needed to be," he said. "And that's a tough thing to do when I still don't have that many green-flag pit stops under my belt. Not flat-spotting the tires, that's probably one of the biggest things."

Packing up the truck after the race, Hornish told his crew Sunday night's performance felt like a win and the finish was especially enjoyable on the same weekend of the storied Indy 500.

"For him it had to be kind of a bittersweet day knowing that he could be an Indy 500 champion," Carrier said. "He just focused on what he had to do [Sunday] ... he took care of his stuff. I see great things coming from him."