AVONDALE, Ariz. (November 13, 2010)—- The gremlins continued to plague Ron Hornaday and the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) E-Z-GO Chevrolet team. With two weeks of bad luck behind them the team came to Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) looking for a turnaround. However, the second practice session brought trouble to the team when they had problems making all the changes they wanted to make due to a mechanical glitch. As a result, Hornaday was unable to make a mock qualifying run and was not sure what he had when he went to make his qualifying lap on Friday. The No. 33 truck turned much more freely than Hornaday expected, resulting in a 14th-place qualifying effort. Despite a strong run toward the front, the No. 33 E-Z-GO Chevrolet was unable to get any higher than third on the leader board. With 36 laps remaining, Hornaday appeared to be on his way to a top-five finish, the No. 3 of Austin Dillon made contact with the No. 33 truck sending Hornaday hard into the turn-one wall. The truck sustained heavy rear-end damage and the team was unable to make repairs. Hornaday recorded his third DNF (did not finish) in a row finishing in the 29th position.
“We had a great truck,” said Hornaday after the wreck. “The E-Z-GO Chevrolet was awesome. We were really good during the second run, but I guess this set of tires was just a little looser. I was waiting on the pressures to build up in this set and I guess Austin [Dillon] just got down in there and got loose. I was going to let him go but I knew the No. 51 was right there with him. It’s a real shame for E-Z-GO, VFW, Rheem, Georgia Boot, just everybody. It takes a lot of people to make this thing work and this is another new truck that I have wrecked. We just have to get some luck going.”
Hornaday began the Lucas Oil 150 from the 14th position, marking only the fourth time Hornaday has started outside the top 10 at PIR. Wasting little time, Hornaday quickly made his way up through the field being scored in the ninth position when the first caution waved on lap 16. Hornaday reported to the team that he was too loose getting into the corner and was way too loose trying to drive off the corners. Hornaday made adjustments inside the cockpit of the No. 33 truck by tinkering with the front brake bias. The race restarted on lap 23, as Hornaday moved into the seventh position. On lap 26, Hornaday flipped to the opposite feedback, telling crew chief Butch Hylton that he was too tight while trying to navigate through traffic. Working to adapt to the feeling of his truck, Hornaday began to try different lines and strategies to get around the one-mile oval.
As the caution waved for the second time, the No. 33 truck had moved into the fifth position. The team decided to bring Hornaday down pit road for the first scheduled pit stop of the evening. The team changed four tires, added fuel and made a slight air-pressure adjustment. Hornaday restarted the race on lap 59 from the fifth position. Without even completing one lap of green-flag competition, the caution waved again for a multi-truck incident involving Ricky Carmichael and Tayler Malsam. The race restarted on lap 63 with Hornaday still in the fifth position.
The longer the run went, the faster the No. 33 truck became, moving into the third position on lap 80 and chasing his KHI teammate Clint Bowyer for second. The caution flew again on lap 89 and the No. 33 team came down pit road for the second and final scheduled pit stop of the evening. Hornaday had reported the No. 33 truck was “pretty good,” so the team changed four tires and added fuel, making no chassis adjustments. A few trucks chose different strategies, but a solid stop by the No. 33 pit crew allowed Hornaday to restart the race with 55 laps remaining in the fifth spot.
After the restart, Hornaday jumped into the third position, however, on this run, the truck became looser the longer the run went. By lap 100, Hornaday had slipped back into a race with Austin Dillon and Aric Almirola for the fourth and fifth positions. With few laps remaining in the race, Hornaday fought to keep his track position. On lap 114, the No. 3 of Dillon drove down hard into turn one, underneath Hornaday. Dillon’s truck snapped sideways, as he made every effort to save the truck, but Hornaday became the innocent victim as Dillon lost the nose of the truck, hooking Hornaday in the right-rear quarter panel. The contact sent the No. 33 truck backwards into the outside retaining wall and the No. 33 truck sustained heavy rear-end damage. The team brought the truck to pit road to survey the damage, but it was decided that the damage was too great to fix with less than 30 laps remaining, ending the night early for the No. 33 team for the third week in a row. Hornaday was credited with a 29th-place finish.
Hornaday’s KHI teammate Clint Bowyer went on to win the Lucas Oil 150 followed by Kyle Busch, Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton and Aric Almirola.
Todd Bodine was crowned the 2010 Truck Series champion with a 202 point lead over Almirola. The Truck Series travels to Homestead-Miami Speedway next Friday night for the season finale Ford 200 which can be seen live on SPEED at 7:30 p.m., EST.
STATS RECAP
Race Info
November 12, 2010
Phoenix International Raceway
Race: 24 of 25
Driver: Ron Hornaday
Started: 1 4th
Finished: 29th
Truck Series Point Standings: 7th, 637points behind leader Todd Bodine
Next on the Schedule for the No. 33:
Date: November 19, 2010
Track: Homestead-Miami Speedway
Event Name: Ford
Driver: Ron Hornaday
Broadcast Time: SPEED 7:30 p.m., EST MRN 7:45 p.m., EST