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Hornaday Wins Power Stroke Diesel 200 At ORP

CLERMONT, Ind. (July 27, 2007) — Ron Hornaday pulled away from Johnny Benson on a green-white-checkered finish to win the rain-delayed Power Stroke Diesel 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race Friday at O’Reilly Raceway Park.

Hornaday’s victory was his third of the season and the 32nd of his career — tops all-time in the series. He also cut Mike Skinner’s points lead by more than half, from 164 to 77. Skinner finished 20th, his first race out of the top eight this season.

“What an awesome race,” Hornaday said. “We certainly had to race hard. We did what we came here to do. Skinner had some bad luck, but we’ve got to win races. Skinner is still the guy we’ve got to beat.”

It was a long day for the NASCAR teams as a light intermittent drizzle fell on the Indianapolis suburb most of the day causing qualifying to be rained out and the field set by owner points. Intermittent drizzle continued until the early evening causing the delay of the race till after 9pm. Hornaday’s Chevrolet started on the outside of the front row. He passed Skinner for the lead on the 23rd lap and led until making a pit stop under caution on Lap 80.

Hornaday emerged in sixth, behind three trucks that didn’t stop, Travis Kvapil’s Ford and Rick Crawford’s Ford.

Rookie Willie Allen, on older tires, managed to hold off the faster trucks of Kvapil, Hornaday and Crawford for 23 laps. Kvapil blasted past Allen on a restart and Hornaday quickly moved into second. Hornaday commented on his contact with Willie Allen: “I started in under Willie and Benson and Travis (Kvapil) were right there with me and Willie slid up a little bit and I got in to him and he got in to the wall. I apologize to Willie cause I hate it that happened. Willie is a great little racer and he had a good truck tonight.

Kvapil stayed in the lead for 66 straight laps. Hornaday and Benson were racing side-by-side for second for much of that period, but they began to gain on Kvapil.

Hornaday passed Kvapil exiting Turn 4 on Lap 170 to take the lead. “I was getting into the corner better than Travis was,” Hornaday said. “I had been keeping the pressure on him, getting his back tires hotter and hotter, and he got caught in some traffic.” Kvapil added, ?My truck was getting too loose, my rear tires were spinning up off the corner and I couldn?t lay the gas down hard enough and had to baby it around the corner and Ron was still able to get a good drive. I was losing time.? On restart for green/white/checkered Hornaday added, “We were coming down for the green and Johnny (Benson, finished second) bumped me in the back and I am thinking ‘Whoa Johnny, I am not even to the line yet.’ I don’t go until I get to that line because I have been black-flagged so many times, it would have been my fourth or fifth time, so I wasn’t going to go. Now they are saying it is in the vicinity of the line. But the vicinity for me is when my front tires cross that line that is when I go. Johnny and those guys have to understand that; they can run in to the back of this truck all they want. It worked for out us.?

Kvapil had hoped for shorter runs, but the race went green from Laps 136 to 185.

“We had a good short-run truck and we had a long run there,” Kvapil said. “Our truck was really good for 20 to 30 laps. We needed cautions to cool down the back tires.”

Benson’s Toyota had dropped from third to 11th during his pit stop on Lap 80. He climbed back to third in 60 laps. Benson passed Kvapil for second on Lap 174.

Hornaday had two restarts in the final 12 laps and drove away to significant leads each time. The second forced the race to go into a one-lap overtime, but Hornaday won by five truck lengths.

Kvapil finished third, followed by Crawford’s Ford and Ken Schrader’s Dodge.

Todd Bodine came home sixth with Erik Darnell coming across the line in seventh. Darnell commented after the race, ?I wish we had a chance to qualify. I think we would have started a little better than 14th. We started off further back than we wanted but were able to pick-up a couple of spots. The track position is really important here and it?s so hard to pass. We didn?t pit on lap 93 like a couple of the other guys did. We knew that if we came in any time after that, we?d be way behind as far as track position. We stayed out a little bit and rode around on older tires, just like the leaders. Overall, tonight was good for us. The past couple of races we?ve had some bad luck with blown motors and cut tires. We had good pit stops; my guys did great. I can?t stay enough about the crew, track position here is big and they helped me gain a spot. Hopefully, we?ll be able to build on our success here tonight.?

The series has off next week and returns to racing August 11th at the 1.3-mile Nashville Superspeedway for the Toyota Tundra 200.

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