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Hornaday Holds Off Busch Late

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The Associated Press

Published: June 7, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas - Kyle Busch arrived at Texas Motor Speedway, got in his truck and started driving through the field.

Busch finished second Friday night in the Craftsman Truck Series race, the first of a planned cross-country trifecta to become the first driver to race in all three of NASCAR's national series at three different tracks on the same weekend.

Ron Hornaday Jr. held off Busch for the final two laps after a green-white-checkered finish for his 35th career victory, his first at Texas.

On the previous restart with 11 laps to go, Busch moved from fourth to second in less than one lap, getting past Johnny Benson and Jack Sprague to get behind Hornaday. But he never could push in front for the lead.

Since Busch didn't drive the truck during qualifying Thursday, and also missed the drivers' meeting, he had to start at the back of the 35-truck field. He was up to 16th after only 30 laps, and was in the top 10 within 53 laps.

Busch arrived at the track about an hour before the start of the truck race, after flying from Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, where he had earlier qualified 10th for the Sprint Cup race Sunday.

Dixon, Castroneves Take Front Row On IRL Grid

FORT WORTH, Texas - Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves will start at Texas the same way they are in IndyCar Series points - 1-2.

Dixon, the Indianapolis 500 champion and series points leader, earned his fourth pole of the season by averaging 214.878 mph during his four-lap qualifying run Friday at the 1 1/2 -mile, high-banked track for the Bombardier Learjet 550k.

Still, his 12th career pole came as a bit of a surprise for Dixon.

"Today in practice, we were struggling," Dixon said. "Qualifying was eye-opening. I didn't think the car could do a speed like that."

Castroneves, second in points and the only driver with top-five finishes in every race, had a qualifying speed of 214.777 mph. His Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe, who won last week at Milwaukee, starts third tonight.

Dixon has finished third or better in all but one race, the road course at St. Petersburg when he had mechanical problems, didn't finish and failed to lead a lap. The Target Chip Ganassi driver has led at least 67 laps in every other race.

Hideki Mutoh will start fourth, ahead of Danica Patrick and Tomas Scheckter. St. Petersburg resident Dan Wheldon qualified 11th only hours after he flipped his car in practice Friday.

Wheldon sustained a sprained right ankle that was heavily wrapped before qualifying.

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