Hornish having great second season

Steve Brisendine

Thursday, July 12, 2001 | 8:11 a.m.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. - Sam Hornish Jr. worried the highly regarded Panther Racing team before the season.

Would the second-year IRL driver be patient enough on the track? Would he repeat his rookie mistakes? Would he stay competitive?

With two victories and top-five finishes in all but one of eight starts this year, the team need not worry anymore.

"Just to keep finishing ahead of people that are close to me in the points, that's the big thing," Hornish said. "As long as we do that, we keep stretching out the points lead, and that's what we need."

Eddie Cheever believes the budding star of the Indy Racing League will be seeing the competition in the mirror for years to come.

"It's great to see drivers like that coming up through the IRL," Cheever said. "That guy just doesn't let up."

Hornish demonstrated that again with a second-place finish on Sunday in the Ameristar Casino Indy 200 at Kansas Speedway. That solidified the 22-year-old driver's advantage over series champion Buddy Lazier in the IRL points race.

Hornish's success comes as no surprise to former Indy 500 champion Cheever, who with a background in Formula One, CART and the IRL has seen many potential superstars fade after impressive starts. He doesn't think that will happen to Hornish.

"If Lazier is going to defend his championship, he's dealing with a Tasmanian devil there," Cheever said. "This guy is very good, and he drives for a very good team. He's very talented. But above all, he drives ethically."

Hornish carries a 60-point lead over Lazier into the Harrah's Indy 200 on July 21 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Although he has led a series-best 465 laps, Hornish knows the primary task is to be on the track at the end no matter how poorly he races. That means knowing when to gamble and when to be conservative.

"The thing that I've done this year so far is try to go out there and bring the car home, first of all," he said. "If we had a car that was capable of winning, then we went out and won. If not, then we went out and brought the car home."

He has considerable confidence in the team, saying it has adapted well during races even at tracks where the Oldsmobile-powered Dallara has not been so competitive.

"We all worked together, and we made positive changes to the car throughout the race," Hornish said.

There was little positive about his rookie season, when he wound up 21st in the standings and third among first-year drivers. He was running at the end in only three of eight starts, making the top 10 twice with a best finish of third in Las Vegas.

But that was with underfinanced PDM Racing. After the season, Hornish replaced Scott Goodyear with Pennzoil-backed Panther Racing.

It didn't take long for Hornish to prove he was more than a hopeful sophomore. He won his first two races for Panther in Homestead, Fla., and Avondale, Ariz.

In each of his last three races, he has finished second - to Lazier at Pikes Peak International Raceway and in Richmond, Va., then to Cheever in a late-lap shootout Sunday.

"I figure with the car that we had at Pikes Peak, that was a frustrating one," Hornish said.

He struggled with tire problems and almost wrecked in that race, but he hung on gamely.

"As far as Richmond goes, we weren't quite as fast as Buddy," Hornish said. "So it was gratifying to be able to go out there and finish the race. I was pretty tough on the car that day, sliding around quite a bit, trying to keep up with Buddy."

Right now, it's up to Lazier to try to stay with him, but the series champion whose two-race winning streak ended Sunday isn't conceding anything.

"We just need to keep our momentum up," Lazier said.

If he doesn't, Hornish might become the youngest champion in the history of big-time American auto racing.