It was Saturday morning during the IndyCar/NASCAR weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the track’s frontstretch was shaded from the hot midwestern sun.
There was a buzz at the Yard of Bricks as some of the greatest names in the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway were gathering for a photo.
The group included the living past winners of the Indianapolis 500 along with many of the living past winners of the NASCAR race at the Brickyard, previously known as the Brickyard 400.
There was two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk talking to three-time Brickyard 400 winner Kevin Harvick. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears was talking to two-time Brickyard winner Kyle Busch.
Even Ricky Rudd, the 1997 Brickyard 400 winner, was there. It was the first time Rudd had returned to a NASCAR race since he retired in 2007.
It seemed everybody, including four-time Brickyard 400 winner Jeff Gordon, wanted to talk to Mario Andretti.
And there was respect when the legendary four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt arrived on a golf kart.
There was another driver in the group who quietly joined the crowd carrying his son on his shoulders.
It was Sam Hornish Jr.
He was once the best driver on the track during his incredibly successful career that began in the Indy Racing League with PDM Racing in 2000. Just 20 at the time, Hornish carried the low-budget operation to a podium in 2000.
During the offseason, Pennzoil Panther Racing had a seat to fill and auditioned several drivers for that ride. They tested Hornish at Phoenix Raceway and he was by far the fastest and best out of the group of drivers that included several Indy car veterans.
Hornish was named to the ride and in his very first race for the team in 2001 proved he was a star of the future.
Hornish led 140 laps and easily won the race. He also won the next race on the schedule at Homestead-Miami Speedway. A third victory in the season finale at Texas Motor Speedway on Oct. 6, 2001, was one of his best.
He defeated Scott Sharp by .019 seconds and won his first IndyCar Series championship.
The Indy Racing League had developed a homegrown star from Defiance, Ohio, and he was just 22 years old.
The next season, Team Penske joined the IRL full time, but Hornish continued to dominate. In the season opener at Homestead, he started on the pole and led 166 of 200 laps. Team Penske’s Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves were second and third, the only other drivers on the lead lap.
Hornish and Pennzoil Panther Racing won five races that season, including the final two at Chicagoland Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.
In that Texas finale, Hornish secured his second consecutive championship when he defeated Castroneves by .010 seconds. That day may have been the zenith of the old IRL as Panther Racing, a team with a $3 million budget, defeated Team Penske, a team that had a $22 million budget.
Penske had seen enough. He hired Hornish to join his team after the 2003 season. Although the team struggled with the Toyota engine in 2004, Hornish rebounded in 2006 by winning four more races — his only Indianapolis 500 and his third season championship.
Hornish’s Indy 500 win was one of the most dramatic in history as he passed rookie Marco Andretti just a few hundred yards from the checkered flag.
It was the first time in Indy 500 history that the race-winning pass was made on the final lap.
“The photo from that victory, the whole back of the wall is painted white and it’s a nice place to sign an autograph in front of my car,” Hornish recalled. “Marco asked me, ‘Do you like signing that?’ I said, ‘It’s pretty cool.’
“He said, ‘Remember, for every one you sign as the winner, I have to sign finishing second.’
“I appreciate it a lot more now.”
In 2007, Hornish won another race at Texas Motor Speedway, increasing his then record for most career wins to 19.
At the end of that season, Hornish left IndyCar and never returned. He switched to Team Penske’s NASCAR operation. For as easy as Hornish made it look in an Indy car, it was the opposite in NASCAR.
He mightily struggled and by 2010, he was out of a Cup Series ride at Team Penske.
In 2011, Hornish drove for Penske’s Xfinity Series team and won a NASCAR race at Phoenix on Nov. 12. Hornish was emotional in victory lane as he reflected on the long, hard struggle that it took to score a NASCAR victory.
In 2013, Hornish finished second in the NASCAR Xfinity Series standings. He won five NASCAR Xfinity Series races before his career faded into the sunset after the 2017 season. The knock on Hornish when he drove in the IRL was that he could only win on ovals.
Fittingly, the final victory of his career came at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Aug. 2, 2017.
Ironically, after that season, the phone stopped ringing.
“If you want to run stock cars, you have to be in North Carolina unless you are really, really, really good,” Hornish told SPEED SPORT. “At the end of 2015, we decided to move back home to Ohio. I didn’t have a full-time ride. I was part time and we decided to go back home.
“When we left, I was pretty bummed out. My wife asked, ‘Why are you so upset? It’s just a house.’ I said, ‘When I move home, it may not happen right away, but it’s the first nail in the coffin.’
“She asked, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘They will call, I won’t be there. Then, they will get somebody else, and they will go down the list and pretty soon, they stop calling.’
“Shortly after we moved back, I got a call about a Cup deal. I said I had just moved back to Ohio and have to talk to my wife. They said they would get back to me.
“They determined I didn’t want it that bad. When you have three kids at that time and now, we have a fourth, with a ton going on, I’m really thankful the last time I was at a track driving I finished second, won the owners’ championship for the team and got a chance to stand on the stage after it.
“A lot of guys don’t get a chance to do that.”
Hornish was always a man of true convictions. When he left IndyCar, he left it for good.
When asked about today’s IndyCar racing, Hornish said, “I understand the need for it, but when they are running wheel-to-wheel with somebody and the wheels stick outside of the sidepods, that’s a different thing.
“It’s not a knock on anything or anybody, but I’m tired of seeing cars go into the fence.”
Even today, there are some who don’t give Hornish the credit he truly deserves. His entire IndyCar career came at a time when there were two series — the IRL and CART/Champ Car.
“There is no other series now so anybody that is in IndyCar, you can’t say Sebastien Bourdais is in the other series,” Hornish said. “I beat two pretty tough guys in 2002 and everybody that was there was competing at a high level in 2006.
“I think the depth of the field is great. It’s pretty cool to see Scott Dixon over there still hanging in there winning races. There were times I could beat him, so it makes me feel good about my odds if I had kept going.
“That wasn’t the road that I chose.”
Hornish is content with the road he chose.
“I do all kinds of stuff now, mostly what I want to do,” Hornish said. “Scott Dixon said, ‘Where have you been? At the beach?’ I said, ‘When you don’t wear a helmet five days a week, you get a little more tan.
“I do a lot of outdoor work, hanging out with the kids to help them do what they want to do. I spend time building projects and restoring things.
“I didn’t spend anything when I was racing. Everybody wanted to know why I didn’t have a Ferrari.
“A Corvette was cool enough for me.”
Hornish was always the quiet man from Defiance, Ohio. He walked away while he was still on top of IndyCar for a new challenge and never looked back.
Would he have done it again?
“Yes,” Hornish said. “I would do it differently if I did. I would have been a squeaky wheel more than I was. I believe Roger wanted me to go over there to make sure the culture was the same as it was in IndyCar.
“Today, the way Team Penske competes with multiple Daytona 500 wins and championships and the way that team competes, it’s on par with the way the IndyCar team does.
“I might not have been the guy that got him those wins, but if I could be the guy that helped to change the culture that got Roger those things, I’m happy for it.”