Hornish relaxed, confident for second Brickyard race (cont'd)

Near the top of the speed chart on Friday and excelling on the circuit's flat tracks such as Indianapolis, Pocono and New Hampshire, Hornish feels he will be in contention to win on Sunday.

"Before coming to Indy last year, we had been to Pocono and that was terrible for us. We had been to New Hampshire, that was terrible. But this season we have top-10s at both places. We put a lot of work into our flat-track program in the offseason, and hopefully that will transfer to Indianapolis."

To be a successful Cup driver, Hornish has learned to focus on what his feet are doing as much as his hands.

"It's about not upsetting the car too much with the brake or too much throttle," he said. "I feel like we've come a long way. We've actually run a lot better than where we are in points and some of the results have shown. I feel like this transition would have been a lot easier for me if I never drove anything front-engine until I got over here [to NASCAR].

"If I would have grown up running late models or sprint cars, I feel like the transition would have been a lot easier, but everything that I did was in preparation to be an IndyCar driver."

Still, he's starting to feel more relaxed and confident among the Cup competition despite critics who believe he'll retreat back to the open-wheel ranks -- as a handful of his counterparts have done -- if he doesn't find substantial success soon in NASCAR.

"I'm waiting for the 'when are you going back to IndyCar' questions to end," Hornish said. "I know that the better we do over here, the less of those questions that I get. I came to do this to finish out my career -- being a stock-car driver. For some people it's hard to believe that, but the better that we do the less people ask me those questions."

In the meantime, he's enjoying the more at-ease atmosphere the stock cars bring to Indianapolis as opposed to the month-long pageantry involved with the Indy 500.

"I got to get the sickness out of me that I had when I was running IndyCars," he said. "I'd be here for three weeks and my stomach would turn and everything, but being here only three days doesn't allow you to get that emotion and everything built up so I enjoy that."