Sam Hornish, Jr. turns in memorable All-Star performance

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Saturday night, Sam Hornish, Jr. turned in an impressive performance in both the Sprint Showdown and the All-Star Challenge. Calling Hornish’s performance thus far in the 2008 season rocky would be an understatement. He ran well in the Daytona 500, for a good part of the first half of the race, he ran in the top 5, before finishing a respectable 15th. However, his next several performances were lacking, due to his continued inexperience. His best run after Daytona came at Phoenix, a 20th place effort. Not the stuff of legend, for sure. On Saturday night, he changed that – and may just change people’s minds that have been dismissive of his stock car exploits, myself included.

It was not just the fact that Sam ran well Saturday night, it was the way he ran with the car turned so far right, I’m calling them “Limbaugh” setups for now on. In the Showdown, Hornish made the high line work, and despite spinning his tires and falling back a few spots, he darn near won the thing, instead he didn’t risk his equipment and let A.J. Allmendinger take first. When the All-Star Challenge started, he banged the wall pretty good, and went down 3 laps at one point. Since apparently the Lucky Dog is used in the race (unbeknownst to my knowledge) Hornish got back on the lead lap, and ate up the field en route to finishing a strong 7th… and it could have been more if the race had gone longer. Hornish had a car that could pass, something we did not see enough of in the race. I don’t know if it was tires or what. That Kasey Kahne could have an average car most the night, take no tires for the last segment, and drive away from the field worries me about how the 600 will play out. Maybe its just me, but this race wasn’t up to the level Atlanta and Texas were.

Kahne will get the headlines in the papers and the TV time this week, but if you’re like me and obsessed with everything about the sport, you saw what I saw: Sam Hornish, Jr. showing flashes of what could be in the future.

Photo credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc.