Twenty years ago, Sam Hornish Jr. delivered Roger Penske his 14th Indianapolis 500 win in dramatic fashion. In a storybook finish, Hornish charged by Marco Andretti in the last 450 feet to win the 2006 500 by a mere 0.0635 seconds.
Like hitting a three-pointer at the buzzer to win a championship basketball game or kicking a winning field goal with no time on the clock, young Hornish dreamed about just such a victory.
Growing up in Archbold, Ohio, he was a passionate Indianapolis 500 fan, which fueled his dream of becoming a race car driver.
“There was a God-given drive to want to be in a race car and to be competitive and go fast,” Hornish explained. “Even if I was only in a go-kart going 35, I was always wondering how I could be a little faster than the next guy.”
Hornish began chasing his racing dream with go-karts at age 11. At 15, he won 19 races on his way to the 1994 World Karting Association U.S. Championship. Hornish transitioned to Formula Fords in 1996, where he spent two and a half seasons, and moved to the Toyota Atlantic series in 1999.
Driving for Michael Shank, his performance was such that it caught the attention of several IndyCar owners.
He signed with PDM Racing for the 2000 season, and in only his third IndyCar start, the 21-year-old got his first podium finish, third, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
A month later, his dreams became reality, and he headed to Indianapolis. With sponsorship from his family’s trucking company, he qualified his Dallara/Oldsmobile a respectable 14th.
On race day, he endured a long rain delay, then came the famed command he’d heard so often while following race broadcasts as a youngster, “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines.”
The race, however, didn’t unfold as he would’ve hoped. He finished 24th after an accident on lap 153.
At the end of his rookie season, Hornish signed with Panther Racing, then co-owned by current Speedway and IndyCar President Doug Boles, and set out to etch his name in the IndyCar record books.
He opened the 2001 season by winning the first two races, then went on a tear of strong finishes.
By the season’s final race at Texas Motor Speedway, he’d wrapped up the championship, becoming the youngest IndyCar champion to that time. To cap it off, he qualified on the pole at Texas and led 115 laps to win.
2002 proved even more successful for Hornish. He won five races, often with his dramatic patented last-lap passes high and on the outside. He repeated as the IndyCar series champion. 2003 didn’t match the previous two years’ performance; still, he won three races and was in position to take his third consecutive championship when an engine failure ended his hopes for another crown in the season’s final race.
As successful as Hornish was on the IndyCar circuit, however, he continually fell short in the race he most wanted to win. Indianapolis.
His potential, however, didn’t go unnoticed by Roger Penske, and he signed him for the 2004 season. “We got tired of that yellow car (denoting Pennzoil sponsorship), constantly beating us on the last lap,” chuckled Penske Team Manager Tim Cindric, “so we hired him.”
With Penske, most believed Hornish’s luck at the speedway would drastically improve. And he was competitive, qualifying well and leading laps, but incidents not of his own making kept him from a 500 victory in 2004 and 2005.
Hornish arrived at Indianapolis in 2006 with a determined focus. He was the fastest in every daily practice run but one and took the pole. At the green, Hornish intentionally slipped back to third, determined to stay with the front runners without overextending himself or the car.
When a caution ended with four laps to go, Hornish ran fourth. He passed Scott Dixon in turn one for third, and quickly blew by Bryan Herta and then Michael Andretti, who tried a block to preserve his son Marco’s lead.
Hornish caught Marco on the backstretch on lap 199, but Marco forced him to the grass in turn three. Falling a full second back, Hornish didn’t quit. He gained on Marco running high through turn four, caught him on the front stretch, and took the checkered flag by 15 feet.
After the race, Hornish commented, “I thank God for giving me a lot of talent, not so much the fact of what I can do driving, but the fact that I didn’t want to give up.”
