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Hornish Leaving IndyCar For Full-Time NASCAR Ride

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The Associated Press

Published: November 9, 2007

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Sam Hornish Jr. is leaving the IndyCar Series for a full-time ride in NASCAR, joining the mass exodus of open-wheel stars fleeing to America's most popular racing series.

The three-time IndyCar champion told The Associated Press he will drive the No. 77 Dodge next season for Penske Racing, with Mobil 1 as the sponsor.

"I feel like this is something that is a new and unique challenge for me," Hornish said Thursday. "It may or may not be the right way to look at it, but I feel like I accomplished just about everything in Indy cars. I got to do more than I ever thought I would."

Penske will officially introduce Hornish as the third driver for his NASCAR team on Saturday night at the Penske Racing Museum in Phoenix. He'll join a team that already fields cars for Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman.

He'll join Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Jacques Villeneuve as former Indianapolis 500 winners and IndyCar series champions now racing in NASCAR's top series. Patrick Carpentier is also moving to NASCAR after a long open-wheel career, and AJ Allmendinger fled Champ Cars for NASCAR this season.

Scott Speed, who spent the last two years in Formula One, has also migrated to stock cars and will drive in the low-level ARCA Series next year to prepare for NASCAR.

Hornish, last year's Indianapolis 500 winner, has been leaning toward moving to NASCAR for some time. But his struggles in making races - he has failed to qualify for all six Cup races he has entered - had led many to speculate he might stick with IndyCars another year.

SPYING SCANDAL: Formula One's spying scandal took another twist when Renault was accused by the sport's governing body of possessing confidential information belonging to rival team McLaren.

FIA has summoned Renault officials to a hearing of the World Motor Sport Council on Dec. 6 in Monte Carlo, Monaco, to answer a charge of having "unauthorized possession of documents and confidential information" of McLaren cars between September 2006 and October 2007.

The information includes "but is not limited to the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren F1 car, together with details of the McLaren fueling system, gear assembly, oil cooling system, hydraulic control system and a novel suspension component used by the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars," the FIA statement said.

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