AVONDALE, Ariz. -- First, everyone wondered when Sam Hornish Jr. was going to leave IndyCars to go to NASCAR. Now, everyone's wondering when he's going to leave NASCAR to go back to IndyCars.

"It's kind of a funny thing," the driver said, "because if you look at from 2001 to 2006, all everybody wanted to talk about was when I was going to NASCAR. Now for the last year, all everybody wanted to talk about was when I'm going back to IndyCars. I can't win wherever I'm at. Everybody wants me to be somewhere else, I guess."

Right now he's on the Sprint Cup tour, and that's where he plans to stay -- for the time being, anyway. Although team owner Roger Penske did speak to Hornish about the tenuous status of team IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves, who may or may not return to that organization next season, the 2006 Indianapolis 500 effectively debunked some reports that indicated that he'll be back in the open-wheel ranks next year.

"I think all of that is basically untrue," Hornish said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. "I don't know where we got off on the wrong foot there, but it all started basically when Dario [Franchitti] decided to go and run IndyCars and then all the questions started coming on what I was going to do. And then obviously now there are some other things that have brought to light the fact that, you know, maybe I would go back over there. But I'm focused on running here and I'm focused on trying to be the best Sprint Cup driver I can be."

The NASCAR rookie from Defiance, Ohio, is clearly still trying to find his footing in stockcars. Hornish comes to Phoenix 37th in owner points and without a top-20 finish since Dover in June. His 15th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 has been followed by a trying season where he's often needed to get into races on speed. He missed one, at Talladega in October.

Compare that to his accomplishments on the IndyCar circuit, where he won five championships and the discipline's biggest event, and it's easy to see why some might wonder if he's toying with the idea of going back. But Hornish said that NASCAR offers him one thing the open-wheel circuit cannot: a challenge.

"I came over because I wanted the challenge of doing this. I wanted to see it out. I wanted to get to the point where I felt like I could win races. We're not there yet, but still working on it. I've said in the past that even if I have to step down and go to a good Nationwide ride to be able to get back here to try to get to the point where I can win Sprint Cup races, I'm willing to do that before I'm going to give up and go back over and just do what's comfortable," he said.

"I felt like, and nothing against the IndyCar Series, but I felt like I achieved more than I ever dreamed of doing over there. And when I got an opportunity to come over here and see how different it was, exactly how much harder it could be. I didn't spend the last 15 years of my life trying to be a stock-car driver. I'd spent it all on open-wheel cars and trying to learn this. I feel like I learn something new every day, and I feel like there's going to be a great amount of satisfaction if I get to the point where I feel like I can win. So I want to get to the point where I have that satisfaction."

He's not there yet. But two years into his NASCAR odyssey -- he made his first start in a then-Busch Series event at Phoenix in 2006 -- he's not ready to give up. "Roger [Penske] has been really kind of happy, on one hand, with our performance over the past couple of weeks, because we've shown the speed that we need," Hornish said. "We haven't got the finishes, but I don't think it's in his mind at all to have me go back over [to IndyCars]. I think he's invested a lot of time and money in seeing this through. I've invested a lot of time trying to see this through."