Ron Hornaday Wins at The Magic Mile, Capping Off A Bad Week With Victory

It's been a trying week for Ron Hornaday. But judging from how he drove his Kevin Harvick, Inc. No. 33 Camping World Chevrolet Silverado truck, you wouldn't know it.

Hornaday at New Hampshire, would claim his fifth victory of the season, his 38th career win, led 148 of 200 laps and gained twenty points on Johnny Benson. With seven races left, he's 74 points behind now.

Amazing, when you consider the whirlwind he's been under due to ESPN.com's steroids use article.

Hornaday back in 2004, wasn't feeling well, lost about 38lbs and could not find out from doctors what was wrong. He got a prescription from a doctor, legally obtained testosterone cream from a Fla. clinic and self treated himself.

His boss Kevin Harvick made him go to a doctor to get properly diagnosed and find out what was wrong, since what he was doing did nothing to improve his health.

Hornaday was diagnosed with graves disease, a thyroid condition that can be life-threatening if left untreated. He's on medication that has it under control, looks healthy once again and back to his old Wiley self.

At the time of his use, NASCAR while it did have a drug testing rule was very lax, and did not prohibit the usage of using testosterone, yet. NASCAR didn't penalize Hornaday, saying his usage was for health reasons and did not enhance his performance.

Really, we the fans can learn a good lesson from this. If you are not feeling well, and your health is deteriorating, visit your Doctor or select one, to get properly diagnosed. Do not just continue to self-treat. Or do not go by my example of following WebMD.

With that said, lets get back to racin'. The race was started on Owner points due to qualifying being rained out on Friday.

Johnny Benson in his No. 23 Certified Toyota Used Tundra started on the pole, with Hornaday starting in the outside pole position, making up the front row. With Matt Crafton starting third in the No. 18 Menard's Chevrolet Silverado truck, and Kyle Busch starting fourth in the No. 51 Miccouskee Resorts Toyota Tundra truck.

From the drop of the green flag, Hornaday would take the lead, coming off of turn two on the first lap. But not for long, as Benson would re-pass him for the lead on the third lap on the low-side of the track.

Busch also put pressure on Hornaday, but was to loose to pass him for second. The first caution flew on Lap Five, for Brendan Gaughan in the No. 10 Maxx Force Ford, who spun after making contact with Terry Cook in the No. 60 Wyler Toyota Tundra truck, and received minor damage.

On the Lap Nine restart, Benson took the green flag with Hornaday all over his bumper. Hornaday would move to the low-side, make slight contact with Benson. But both would be okay and Hornaday would lead Lap 10. Benson would battle back leading Lap 11 as they crossed the start/finish line.

The second caution flew on Lap 11, Mario Gosselin in the No. 12 DGM Racing Chevrolet Silverado truck would spin, hit the outside wall and receive minor damage to his truck. He would finish the race, seven laps down to the leader and in twenty-seventh place.

On the Lap 15 restart, Hornaday would drive underneath Benson to take the lead. For about nine laps, you had some great racing between the two drivers. Hornaday while leading was running loose, Benson although he looked faster just couldn't re-pass him for the lead.

Speedtv commented on all the trucks running loose due to the rubber buildup on the track from the Whelen Modified race, held that morning. Once the rubber wore off the track it would tighten back up and most teams wouldn't pit to correct the problem.

Hornaday would stay on the high side, Benson on the low side racing side by side. With each lap ticked off they swapped the lead. Busch was finally able to pass Crafton for third on lap 20 and set his sights on the side by side battle for the lead.

Busch chased both down, was able to pass Benson for second and Hornaday add a few truck length to his lead. Crafton running in fourth was able to catch up al well.

On Lap 26, the Top five as they run was: Hornaday leading, Busch in second, Benson running third, Crafton in fourth and Mike Skinner in the No. 5 Toyota Tundra sponsored truck.

By Lap 33, Hornaday had opened up a 0.432 second lead on Busch in second. While both Benson and Crafton are 3.5 seconds behind the leader.

Donnie Lia in the Randy Moss Motorsports No. 81 NationRides.com Chevrolet Silverado truck. He's been running really well and on Lap 36 sitting in tenth.

On lap 40, Erik Darnell in the No. 99 Northern Tools Ford F-150 truck, makes a great three wide pass using Paul Poulter's No. 40 Key Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado truck as a pick enabling him to get passed Skinner for fifth.

Jack Sprague in the No. 2 Camping World Chevrolet Silverado truck would take advantage also taking sixth away from Skinner.

Hornaday at Lap 40, has led for 29 of the 40 laps and Benson has led 11 laps.

On Lap 47, Hornaday continued to stretch his lead by 0.793 over Busch in second. He also was hitting the slower trucks better lapping them then Busch was passing them.

On Lap 49, the third caution flew for a synchronized spin by David Reutimann in the No. 9 Construct Corps Toyota Tundra truck and Mike Skinner. After contact when Reutimann tried to pass, got loose and causing minor damage to both trucks.

The entire field would pit on Lap 50, with Hornaday winning the battle off of pit road with the lead. Followed by Crafton in second, Benson in third, Darnell followed in fourth and Cook in fifth round out the top five.

Busch would get caught for speeding off of pit road, racing Crafton for second position. Busch would restart 27th, with one to go before the Lap 60 restart. he ducked into the pits, using strategy to top off his fuel tank.

While under caution, the Aaron's Lucky Dog winner Bobby Dotter in the SS Green Light Racing No. 08 wasn't so lucky. Crafton was cleaning his tires off, up high and Dotter bounced his truck off of him.

Crafton would have sheet metal damage to the rear of his truck. Dotter's night was over with a punctured radiator, that probably messed up the engine and finished in thirtieth place.

On the Lap 60 restart, Hornaday took the green pulling away from Crafton in second by a couple of truck lengths. But on the next lap, Crafton would pass him for the lead and Darnell would also pass Benson for third.

On Lap 68, Hornaday would catch up to Crafton, but couldn't make a pass stick on the low side. Two laps later, Hornaday would finally get past Crafton on the low-side and retake the lead.

On Lap 77, Hornaday built up a 1.173 second lead over Crafton and five laps later he stretched it out to 2.235 seconds.

On Lap 84, Darnell would catch and pass Crafton for second place. Meanwhile Busch has worked his way back to thirteenth place, and still has a way to go back up to the leaders.

On Lap 88, Hornaday would lead Darnell by over three seconds in second. Both Rick Crawford in the No. 14 Circle Bar Racing Ford F-150 truck and Travis Kvapil in the No. 09 Zaxby's Ford F-150 truck would pass Benson for fourth and fifth place. Dropping Benson back to sixth place.

At the halfway point on Lap 100: Hornaday was leading, with Darnell in second, Kvapil in third, then Crawford in fourth and Todd Bodine in the No. 33 Lumber Liquidator Toyota Tundra in fifth.

On Lap 105, Hornaday is still leading, but it shrunk to 1.5 seconds over Darnell in second. Been a while for Ford fans to get excited over see the F-150 running in two through fourth with Darnell, Kvapil and Crawford.

With 90 laps to go, Hornaday leads holding right at 1.6 seconds over Darnell in second.

With 87 laps to go, Hornaday widens out the lead to two seconds over Darnell and Kvapil in third starts to catch up to Darnell in second.

With 80 laps to go, Hornaday clinches the five bonus points for leading the most laps today at the Magic mile.

With 79 laps to go, Kvapil passes Darnell for second place and is two seconds behind Hornaday the leader.

Right at 75 laps to go, Benson starts the green flag pit stops, for 13 laps the lead would cycle around to various lead lap drivers.

With 62 laps to go, Kvapil's in the lead by 2.7 seconds over Hornaday in second. Phil Parson's of Speedtv seemed surprised by it and could understand why?

Well it's easy to figure out, Kvapil hasn't run in a truck race since Dover and just racing for a win for Roush-Fenway. While Hornaday  is running for the Championship, currently will make up some points on Benson. So he pitted taking it easy not to get any penalties and hurt himself with making a careless mistake.

With 53 laps to go, Kvapil lead has grown to over four seconds, over Hornaday in second.

But with 50 laps to go, the fourth caution flag flew erasing Kvapil's lead putting Hornaday right on his bumper.

The caution was for Donny Lia being wrecked hard in the outside wall by David Starr in the No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota Tundra. Starr would try to pass Lia, going into the turn get loose and force him into the wall. Starr would continue on with no real damage.

On the restart, with 44 laps to go, Kvapil leading takes the green with Hornaday right on his bumper.

When the lapped truck of Timothy Peters in the No. 17 Premier Racing Dodge tries to battle Kvapil to get back on the lead lap.

Causing contact between Kvapil and Peters. With Peters spinning right in front of Kvapil, causing him to stop and letting Hornaday pass him as the fifth caution flew.

With 39 laps to go, Hornaday leading gets passed the lapped trucks cleanly, while  Kvapil has to deal with them.

With 37 laps to go, Michael Annett almost makes it four wide going down the back stretch. but wisely backs it down going into turn four or it could have been a ugly wreck.

With 35 laps to go, Benson passes Crawford for fourth and goes to work on catching Darnell in third.

With 34 laps to go, Hornaday leads Kvapil by one second and Crawford is all over Benson's bumper for fourth.

With30 laps to go, Busch has worked his way to eighth, catches up to Crafton and starts to battle him for seventh.

With 29 laps to go, Hornaday leads by 1.7 seconds leads the Fords of Kvapil, Darnell, Crawford and Benson's Toyota in fifth.

But Michael Annett would spin after contact with Brian Scott in the No. 16 Albertson's Toyota Tundra truck. Bring out the sixth caution, Annett would finish the night, three laps down in twenty-fourth position.

With 25 laps to go, Hornaday takes the green flag, pulling away from Kvapil and easily clears the lapped trucks.

Darnell with 24 laps to go, would battle Kvapil for second with Benson right behind him in fourth. He would get loose, save it and Benson would pass him for third.

With 20 laps to go, Starr for the second time in the race wrecks another truck. While trying to pass in the corner, getting loose and havecontact with Reutimann.

Bring out the seventh caution flag, both would have sheet metal damage. With 16 laps to go, Hornaday takes the green flag on the restart pulls away from Kvapil by three truck length. 

But as they say cautions breed other cautions. A lap later the eighth caution flew for a pile up resulting from a brief moment with Gaughan trying to run four wide down the front stretch.

Gaughan would spin get minor damage from hitting the outside wall. This caused a chain reaction, with Colin Braun in the No. 6 Con-Way Ford F-150 making contact with the outside wall and damaging the front of his truck. Causing him to stop, jump out of his truck with flames shooting out from under it and smoke inside the truck.

Sprague would also bounce off the back of Crafton. Causing Crafton to make a 360 degree spin and keep on truckin'.

With 9 laps to go, Hornaday takes the green flag on a single file restart. Pulls away from Kvapil by a couple of truck lengths. Benson would be all over Kvapil's bumper and end up passing him for second. 

With 7 laps to go, the ninth caution flew for the third victim of Starr. Starr would take out Bodine yet again trying to pass in the corner. Getting loose. Making contact with Bodine and sending him into the wall.

While Starr would go onto finish the race with a seventh place finish. Bodine would finish in nineteenth on the lead lap and drop to fifth in the points.

With 4 laps to go, Hornaday takes the green flag, restarts good gets a couple of truck lengths lead on Benson.

Busch and Darnell make contact, while racing for fourth and Crawford would pass Busch for fifth.

With 3 laps to go, Hornaday leads by 0.4123 of a second over Benson in second.

Hornaday would make it half a second lead, when he took the white flag and cruise to the checkers for his fifth win of the season. He becomes the first driver to repeat in trucks at NHMS and claimed his third career win at the track.

He would do his famous burnouts for the fans, get the checkered flag and continue doing burnouts saluting the fans.

Meanwhile Bodine would chase down Starr. Coming onto pit road he would bump him and then the two drove side by side banging on each other.

Bodine would drive off, but Starr would park next to him and a brawl would break out. This one was the ugliest, even better than Yarborough and the Allison Brothers at the 1979 Daytona 500.

Be sure to check out, Mary Jo Buchanan's article titled, "The Shine Is Off the Starr-David Starr-at Craftsman Truck Race". She covers the brawl blow by blow, it will result in major fines, suspensions and needs it's own article. So I chose to mention it and not get to in depth about it.

I will mention that I feel for Germain Racing. They are a unique team that multi-tasks not only getting their two full-time trucks ready, but also Mike Wallace's No. 5 Geico Nationwide Car, Sean Caisse's ARCA Re/Max car along with Chrissy Wallace's part-time rides in CTS and ARCA Re/Max.

Hornaday would twice thank everyone for their support over the past week. Shared a hug with Kevin Harvick his owner, thank his crew and his wife Lindy for their support.

Benson would finish second, collecting five bonus points for leading and came up short for the win.

Travis Kvapil ran a great race, finishing third. He easily could have won if it stayed green and the race did have five caution flags in the last fifty laps.

Darnell had another great race, finishing in fourth and move up a position in the point standings to sixth.

Rick Crawford would also run a decent race, finishing in fifth and moved to fourth in the points standings.

It will be interesting to see what the penalties will be for the Germain racing crew members, David Starr and the Red Horse Racing crew members. Should come out on Tuesday and rest assured my Update will break it all down.

The points are now: Benson having a 74 point lead on Hornaday and a 242 point lead on Crafton.

The next race is next week Saturday night under the lights at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Here's the Top Ten results from the Camping World RV Rental 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway:

1. Ron Hornaday

2. Johnny Benson

3. Travis Kvapil

4. Erik Darnell

5. Rick Crawford

6. Kyle Busch

7. David Starr

8. Brian Scott

9. Jack Sprague

10. T.J. Bell