Sam the Man

oily oaf · 30 Jun 2003, 12:02 (Ref:647097)

Wot a drive by Hornish! That boy has it all, skill, reations,guts commitment, guts, racing nous, guts,will to win Oh yeah and guts. I watched that drive at Ricmond (great little track) and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Yep it was that good. Give that guy a few more horses in that new cossie lump and he'll kick some ass for sure. Way to go Sammie boy!

climb · 30 Jun 2003, 14:03 (Ref:647236)

100% with you oily, one more stomach ache

for jay!

MichaelH · 30 Jun 2003, 15:47 (Ref:647328)

Yeah, he's a great driver being held back by an apalling engine.

Seeing that drive, he deserves sooooo much more.

Jay · 30 Jun 2003, 15:53 (Ref:647329)

me? What did I say? He's clearly one of the best oval open-wheel racers...and it shows in this series. Make him turn right in a series like Cart or even Atlantic, and he's proven mid-pack. He'll probably head to Nascar and be the next Jeff Gordon!

Kicking-back · 30 Jun 2003, 16:39 (Ref:647368)

Very good performance - I really thought he would go over the limit and wall it

BootsOntheSide · 30 Jun 2003, 16:45 (Ref:647379)

I think he's the best on ovals in open-wheel cars, although maybe if Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon hadm't gone to NASCAR he'd have bigger competition. On road and street courses, I think he's better than some of the CART guys, but still not really championship material.

oily oaf · 30 Jun 2003, 18:17 (Ref:647491)

Looks like next season Hornish will be leaving Indy for Nascar along with his manager and race engineer. INDY'S loss Nascars gain. Hey and dont worry about his ability to turn right he raced carts from 11 years old and was highly succsessful too. I tell ya the boy's a star and he'll shine wherever or whatever he races or I'm a Chinaman.

rush1 · 30 Jun 2003, 18:42 (Ref:647521)

The Indianapolis Star is reporting Hornish will announce his future plans sometime in August. It will be a big blow to the IRL if he leaves. Hopefully he doesn't have a personal services contract with GM.

First Tony Stewart and possibly Sam Hornish. The only thing worse than being the minor leagues for F1 is being the minor leagues to NASCAR.

shiny side up! · 30 Jun 2003, 18:43 (Ref:647522)

Yeah, with a little testing to get back in the swing of it, Sam could hold his own on the twisty courses just fine... could easily be a contender for the title in CART...

sgw2 · 30 Jun 2003, 18:53 (Ref:647526)

Jay,

you are wrong on Sam Hornish. They said the same thing about Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. But in NASCAR they defeat the road racing ringers at the Glenn and Sears Point.

In fact they said the same thing about Bobby Unser and Rick Mears. But in both cases that turned out to be bunk.

The guys who can go to the front and who are most willing to go anywhere on the track are the guys who do well on both ovals and road circuits.

Hornish would quickly adapt and shock you in CART. He is probably one of the 5 best drivers in North America today. He is the best in Open Wheel in North America, bar none, until the F1 boys race. And even then only a hlf dozen would be his better.

What is most impressive about Hornish is how his car gets better as the race goes on. That is a sign of a thinking driver who reads the car and the track. That puts him in a class above the others.

I cannot wait to see him with the Cosworth-Chevy. Give him 5 more MPH and nobody will touch him.

Jay · 30 Jun 2003, 19:23 (Ref:647559)

Well sgw2, I'd like to see it happen. I'm not sure what you base those statements on given Hornish's very average road record in Atlantic. If you go by where he was in Atlantic, if he had the best car in Cart, he might get the occaisonal podium but not much better. In a Reynard, I think he'd be having hard fought battles with Rodolfo Lavin (also in a Reynard).

racefanatic · 30 Jun 2003, 22:22 (Ref:647822)

I definately don't think Sam would be any good in CART. He's a wonderful oval racer, but he's way too aggressive sometimes. That would cost him in road racing. It took him a year to become competitive in the IRL, which is still pretty good, but it would take him even longer to adapt to road racing from oval racing. I think he would do well in NASCAR, but that's only because I think he did pretty well in IROC.

jenna · 1 Jul 2003, 05:25 (Ref:647980)

it looks like his car is on steroids or something, he seems to be going twice as fast as anyone there...

climb · 1 Jul 2003, 06:44 (Ref:648009)

About Sam's mid-level performances on road racing, I have to re-remind that when he steadily run on roads he was very very young.
Now, being matured , Sam could do much better imo.Maybe he needs some time to adapt, but you cannot exclude tout-court any chance for him.
Jay, don't want to bother you, but i still think that you love CART and hate IRL too much to be 100% objective about Sam. He stands out in IRL and you claim he would lose to Lavin in CART: there is something beyond pure rationality in this statement

racer69 · 1 Jul 2003, 10:33 (Ref:648163)

He did a good job. You could see that, just like Pikes Peak, they had loaded his car up with downforce to get around the corners quicker, and it showed he was right on the limit...

BlueStang · 1 Jul 2003, 15:10 (Ref:648525)

Quote:

Originally posted by racefanatic
It took him a year to become competitive in the IRL, which is still pretty good, but it would take him even longer to adapt to road racing from oval racing. I think he would do well in NASCAR, but that's only because I think he did pretty well in IROC.

That first year was the year he spent with a non-competitive team, too. He won his first two races with Panther.

I have not followed it this year, but he did horribly in IROC last year. He did all right at the first race, but he seems to like running by himself over running in a pack, so he "missed the train" at other races, and fell woefully behind.

Raven · 1 Jul 2003, 17:34 (Ref:648649)

This time two years ago everyone said Kenny Brack was the best oval driver in open wheel, the next year he gets beaten 5 out of 6 times racing on an oval by Junqueira.

On ovals, a lot has to depend on how well the driver/engineers understand each other and gel as a team.

Hornish is a good driver in a good team, well funded and well organised. I don't see him as a supertalent though, simply because of his prior IRL experience in TA.

It's road courses where a great driver can make up for a poor car more so than on an oval.

Tim Northcutt · 1 Jul 2003, 22:35 (Ref:649023)

Quick Notes:

Hornish has been really competitive in the recent races because the tracks have been courses that have not benefitted higher horsepower, and they have loaded downforce on the chassis so that Sam can run flat our and pass on the high side...

It's the only way that they can try to offset the Toyota and Honda superiority in power over the Chevy he is running with right now...

Edgar Jessop · 8 Jul 2003, 15:10 (Ref:655924)

I've now seen Hornish at the Richmond race and he was just awesome!

Of course he's have been much faster if he could have got to the inside line but the others all drove 6 inches from his left forcing him up to 6 inches from the wall - for the whole race

Is is fair to guess he's America's biggest talent at the moment?