Hornaday earns victory at Loudon to cap tough week

LOUDON, N.H. -- It was business as usual for Ron Hornaday.

The king of restarts in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series, Hornaday held off Johnny Benson and Travis Kvapil though a series of five late-race cautions Saturday to win the Camping World RV Rental 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Camping World 200

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Ron Hornaday	Chevrolet
2.	Johnny Benson	Toyota
3.	Travis Kvapil	Ford
4.	Erik Darnell	Ford
5.	Rick Crawford	Ford
6.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
7.	David Starr	Toyota
8.	Brian Scott	Chevrolet
9.	Jack Sprague	Chevrolet
10.	T.J. Bell	Chevrolet

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In a four-lap dash to close the race, Hornaday beat Benson to the finish line by .960 seconds, with Kvapil running third and Erik Darnell and Rick Crawford finishing fourth and fifth, respectively (watch video).

Hornaday's fifth victory of the season and his second in a row was his 38th in 218 NCTS starts. In winning and leading 149 of the 200 laps at the 1.058-mile flat track, Hornaday trimmed Benson's series lead to from 94 to 74 points with seven events left on the 2008 schedule.

A day earlier, Hornaday, No. 33 truck owner Kevin Harvick and NASCAR vice president of corporate communications Jim Hunter had appeared at a news conference at NHMS to explain Hornaday's use of testosterone cream in 2004-2006 for a medical condition ultimately diagnosed as Graves Disease.

In NASCAR's judgment, Hunter said, Hornaday did nothing wrong and was cleared to race (read more).

Race he did, taking the lead for the final time while Kvapil dodged the spinning truck of Timothy Peters after a restart on Lap 158. Hornaday, however, was more concerned that he didn't gain more ground on Benson.

"Oh, Johnny, he always saves it for the last 50 laps, don't he?" said Hornaday, who won for the third time at Loudon. "First and second -- but we led the most laps. He was running sixth or seventh again ... but he drove right up to the front, so he's going to be a tough competitor, and it's going to come right down to [the final race at] Homestead again.

"It's been a long week, but I have to thank everyone that's supported me on this deal."

Kvapil had gained enormous ground during a series of green-flag pit stops that had cycled through by Lap 138. During and after the exchange on pit road, Kvapil turned a 1.7-second deficit into a lead of more than four seconds by the time David Starr's No. 11 Toyota slid into Donny Lia's No. 81 Randy Moss Motorsports Chevrolet in Turn 1, causing the fourth caution of the race on Lap 151.

Moments after the subsequent restart on Lap 158, Hornaday nosed ahead, claiming the lead before the caution flag flew for Peters' spin in Turn 2.

"We were running great lap times, and it just took my truck three or four laps to get going after a restart," Kvapil said. "I was concerned when that caution came out with Ron behind me. He's always good at restarts, and I think the 17 truck [Peters] got down inside of me and got in there too hot -- a lapped truck -- and got loose, got up into me.

"He spun out, and I had to go way up the track to avoid that, and that's when Ron slipped by ... We definitely had a long-run truck, and we had a bunch of cautions there at the end that hurt me."

Three more cautions followed in short order, with a four-car pileup involving Colin Braun, Brendan Gaughan, Jack Sprague and Matt Crafton bringing out the eighth yellow flag on Lap 185.

Hornaday held the lead for a restart on Lap 192, the same lap on which Benson passed Kvapil for the second position. Caution flew for the ninth and final time on Lap 194 after contact from Starr sent Todd Bodine barreling into the Turn 2 wall.

Before Hornaday could begin his celebration in Victory Lane, a brawl erupted on pit road between the Bodine and Starr crews, after Bodine ran into the rear bumper of Starr's truck on the cool-down lap. It took considerable effort on the part of NASCAR officials to break up the fight (watch video).

NASCAR will review the incident and will announce penalties to members of the teams, if warranted, early next week.