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NEWTON, Iowa — If there were any cobwebs for Sam Hornish Jr. in his return to a NASCAR track, they were hard to see after he was among the top-three in both NASCAR XFINITY Series practices and qualifying at Iowa Speedway.
Hornish is back in action for this Sunday’s American Ethanol E15 250 presented by Enogen (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The veteran driver is filling in behind the wheel of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after scheduled driver Matt Tifft was advised by his doctor to rest a disc condition in his back.
The 36-year-old’s last NASCAR start came in the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In that race, Hornish piloted the No. 9 Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports.
Since Homestead, Hornish has been doing “a lot of normal dad stuff” as he describes it, dance recitals and more with his wife and three children. He also went to Alaska with his dad and took his kids to the Indianapolis 500 for the 100th running of the event — a race he won in 2006.
“A lot of the rust happened on Thursday night. I didn’t sleep very well. I was all nervous about getting back in the car,” Hornish told NASCAR.com on Saturday at Iowa. “It’s been since Homestead and six, seven months is not a lot of time for the sake of time itself but it’s still a fair amount when things evolve in this sport.”
For Sunday’s race, Hornish will line up third behind his JGR teammates for the weekend — Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez.
The speed Hornish has shown this weekend at Iowa is nothing new. In his last five starts at the 0.875-mile track, the Ohio native has five top-four finishes – including a win in 2014 with JGR in the team’s No. 54 Toyota (which has since been renumbered to the machine Hornish will pilot Sunday, the No. 18.)
“The car is good,” Hornish said. “The guys here at Joe Gibbs Racing have these XFINITY cars figured out. … With the fact that I have had the opportunity to drive here before, drive for them, you get in the car and everything is pretty much set how I would have it a couple years ago.
“I really love Iowa. If it was going to come for a weekend to have to jump in the car and with a certain team to have to do it with, it was probably two of the best options as far as that goes.”
JGR has been the team to beat all year atop the sport’s two top series, but the dominance is even more apparent in the XFINITY Series. Four drivers (Kyle Busch-four wins, Jones-two wins, Denny Hamlin-one win and Suarez-one win) have combined to produced eight wins in the season’s first 13 races.
The only races on Hornish’s docket prior to this last-minute add were recently announced as well. He will drive the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet in two standalone XFINITY races: Iowa in July and Kentucky in September. The discussions with RCR started back in February, according to Hornish.
“I’ve been vocal over the past three years of wanting to put myself in equipment that I felt was capable to run well. I love my family and I like spending time with them. I’m in a very fortunate position that I can be picky about what I am going to drive.”
Beyond that though, not much appears to be in the offing for the three-time race winner in the XFINITY Series, and Hornish seems content with that.
“I’ve found in the past it’s better to be standing there holding your helmet than to be in something that you can’t get the effectiveness out of,” Hornish said.
“I love racing but it’s not fair to my wife and kids how I act when I am in a situation that I’m frustrated. And I know that being frustrated is being put in a position where I feel like you can’t win.
“They know that their husband, their dad if he is home with them and it didn’t work out, he’s going to be a lot happier than if he’s off chasing a dream that he knows he can’t capture.”