The No. 54 Monster Energy team competed this week with 34-year-old driver Sam Hornish Jr. and achieved a 12-place finish at their first road-course event of the 2014 season. It wasn’t the result this Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) team was looking for after pacing the field fastest in practice, then leading a race-high 25 laps. With Saturday’s result, a collective 13 top-five finishes and one top-15 finish in 14 starts this year the JGR Nationwide Series unit maintains first place in the series Owner’s Championship point standings by 50 markers.
Activity started for the four-time season winners on Friday when, after a rain-delay and subsequent final practice session, the No. 54 Monster Energy Camry was top of the board on the speed charts. Hornish and team continued the momentum Saturday when their qualifying lap of 108.185 mph placed them in fourth-place to start the race, in row two, for the scheduled 50-lap event.
After nearly an hour-long delay for light rain over the course prior to race start, the field took the green flag while a looming overcast sky posed further threat that many teams anticipated to be an issue later in the day. The Monster Energy athlete made quick work of the cars ahead of him when Hornish moved from his starting position to second-place, then overtook the lead all within the first lap of the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course. Hornish would continue his strong lead, but not without concern for the car’s handling when he told the crew early that he was slightly ‘free on drive off.’
Prior to the first caution period crew chief Adam Stevens reminded his driver to save fuel where possible. “I tried to short shift to save some fuel,” confirmed Hornish regarding their plan. The first visit to pit road subsequently followed for the crew to replenish Goodyear tires, Sunoco fuel and make some car adjustments to tighten the rear handling for their driver. While other teams took various pit strategies different from the No. 54, Hornish returned to the race track in the sixth position.
The fall back in spots didn’t deter Hornish, however, when on green-flag restart at lap 15 he moved from sixth-place to second-place within one lap, then went on to retake the race lead once more on lap 17. Hornish was quiet over the radio, focused on the strength of his race car – improved with adjustments made, when another concern began to manifest. The weather had changed yet again.
The Wisconsin facility began to see rain drops around different parts of the course and NASCAR subsequently drew a yellow-flag to mandate competitors implement rain tires. After the tire switch was made to the No. 54, Hornish maintained the lead over the next 10 laps when a further event caution offered the opportunity to visit pit road for more adjustments to improve the car’s rear grip. A slow pit stop affected by the jack man’s ability to raise the car on the right side, pushed the No. 54 to third-place for the event restart.
Once again Hornish did not panic, and methodically worked his way back to the lead spot when on lap 29 his car slid off the track in a turn and he relinquished the first-place position to the No. 22 of Penske Racing, the team’s strongest weekly competitor. Hornish notified his team the car’s ‘forward drive’ was not handling as he wanted, understandable with the consistent rain that continued to make navigating the course difficult.
An event caution on lap 37 and subsequent race restart proved difficult for the black Monster Energy machine who sustained right-rear quarter panel damage as competitors began to aggressively pursue each other, knowing the race was approaching its last 10 laps towards completion. Hornish dropped to fourth place then an improved turn in the weather forced teams to make quick decisions about car setup for the remainder of the race.
The race would appear to conclude with the scheduled 50-lap agenda, and Hornish was poised for a top-five finish, when a final event caution appeared just before the white flag was shown. While the rain subsided and the sun began to beat down on what had been a wet race course all day, teams were faced with the decision to maintain track position and gamble with their fuel strategy or visit pit road and replenish either the rain tires or switch back to ‘slicks’ as part of the race course was showing improvement to dry pavement. Teams were all over the board in their decisions, some remained on track to forgo a stop and maintain track position, while others visited their pit box to change tires. The No. 54 team along with their Joe Gibbs Racing teammates chose to replenish rain tires and fuel then returned to the track surface for a 19th-place restart on what would become a final green-white-checkered flag to the end.
On the green-flag lap Hornish aggressively moved his Toyota Camry from 19th to 16th, to 9th then 6th, and was on track to resume a top-five finish. Unfortunately the mix of cars with rain tires versus the competitors with dry slicks and a frantic urge to improve positions in the final 14 turns proved dicey. On the last lap around the course, the No. 54 was again hit hard in the rear of the Camry, which forced Hornish to lose momentum through the final turns, and resulted in a 12th-place finish.
Post event Hornish commented, “We were having some issues with drive off, to be able to put the power down coming off the corner, even in the dry conditions, so when it got wet I knew that was going to be worse. We were just trying to take care of the rear tires when we could and even when it dried off we started to catch up to the 22 and the 2, but everyone with new tires was able to get away from us and then when we pitted there we paid at the end. We were nervous that we were going to run out of fuel, then we got ran into from behind and it just killed the right rear tire and I think we lost about six spots on the last lap. So not exactly where we wanted to finish with this Monster Energy car, but everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing gave us a real good Camry, we had a fast car to drive we just need to figure out how to make it more versatile for these situations. It’s beautiful now of course, at least we had some speed. We’ll go onto Chicago that’s my next race.”
Hornish now has nine Nationwide Series starts on road-course events which have yielded two poles and six top-five finishes. He will compete again on this type of circuit, with the No. 54 JGR team, at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 on August 16.
KBM PR
