Did You Notice? Hornish Missed Again?

Did You Notice? … The degree to which Roger Penske is trying to force Sam Hornish, Jr. into a Cup series ride for next season? After his sixth DNQ at Atlanta, the team was even talking about switching rides with Kurt Busch for ’08 so that Hornish could have the comfort of being locked into the Top 35 next season – not suffering through the pressure of having to qualify on speed.

Um … what? How many DNQs do we have to put this guy through here before someone’s convinced he’s not ready for Cup yet? Are the options left out there (including former Penske driver Mike Wallace, David Stremme, Johnny Sauter, even Jeff Green) that bad they can’t jump in and serve as at least a one-year stopgap while Hornish learns the ropes in the minor leagues? In fact, take away the last name Hornish from the guy trying to qualify the No. 06 car and replace it with Gaughan – do you think he would be allowed the same type of leeway? Oh, that’s right … he wasn’t. Frontstretch.com

[Editor's Note: As we said, Hornish comes from the 100% throttle IRL series where driver talent, or lack thereof, is masked. In NASCAR the car moves around a lot, even slides, which means a driver must have some level of talent. Maybe Hornish just needs more time…]