Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Hornish still trying to decide where to drive

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | 10:06 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

As his self-imposed deadline nears for making a decision regarding his racing future, two-time Indy Racing League champion Sam Hornish Jr. admittedly is agonizing over whether to stick with open-wheel racing or make a move to stock cars.

During the course of the past year, Hornish's name has been linked to rides with Hendrick Motorsports and Dale Earnhardt Inc. in NASCAR. DEI reportedly is interested in Hornish because of his relationship with his IRL sponsor, Pennzoil, and DEI's wish to retain that company as the primary sponsor of its No. 1 Chevrolet, which is driven by Jeff Green.

While the Hornish-to-NASCAR rumors recently have died down, Hornish said he intends to make his decision by the middle of next month. Hornish's contract with Panther Racing expires at the conclusion of this season.

"I've heard, pretty much everybody that I've talked to, I've heard all their plans and now it's time for me to sit back and think about what I want to do and what's going to make me happy in the long run," Hornish said Tuesday.

"This is a decision time for me; it's closing in on August and I told everybody I'd make a decision around mid-August and that's not too far away."

After winning back-to-back IRL championships in 2001 and 2002, Hornish has struggled this season with an underpowered Chevy engine. Hornish won eight races the past two years but is winless this season and eighth in the championship going into Sunday's Firestone Indy 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Hornish will debut Chevy's new Gen IV engine this weekend, which is said to produce 50 to 60 more horsepower than the current engine, but that might not be enough to keep him in the Indy Racing League -- although he said his frustration this season with the old Chevy engine would have little impact on his decision.

"I've tried to really base my decision on what's going to make me happy and keep me in Victory Circle," Hornish said. "I know that the hard work that Chevrolet has put in this year has definitely not gone unnoticed by me.

"I've got a long time to go yet. Being 24, I've got a lot of years left to race. Basically, that's the hardest thing about making this decision: You want to put yourself in a position to be where you want to be for quite a few more years -- I'm not looking at this as my last contract. It is kind of a tough decision because you want to put yourself in the best place possible so that you can stay there for a long time."

Hornish said that he wants to race where he'll be "the happiest," and acknowledged that there is some fear of the unknown in making a move to NASCAR.

"It is a really big decision because I don't ever want to look at it as like a three- or four-year (process); I want to look at it like 10 years down the road and if I do this, am I going to be happy 10 years from now and is this going to be able to catapult me into maybe something different? Or, if I get to the point where I feel that I need something different in my life, is this new opportunity going to be able to do that for me or is it going to stick me in a place that I don't want to be for a long time?

"That's what's hard about making a decision to do something that you haven't done before because you might get over there and not like it. Do you want to stick yourself there for four years and then give up some opportunities that might have been a long-term thing down the road?"