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Danica Patrick to hear from NASCAR about wrecking Sam Hornish Jr., won’t be penalized - NASCAR
TALLADEGA, Ala.—Danica Patrick will hear from NASCAR officials about sending Sam Hornish Jr. into the wall following the Nationwide Series race Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway, but she likely won’t be penalized, NASCAR officials said Sunday morning.
The two drivers, whose rivalry goes back to their days racing go-karts and extended to the IndyCar Series, likely will both be talked to by NASCAR officials prior to practice next Friday at Darlington Raceway for what happened after the Aaron’s 312 on Saturday.
Hornish forced Patrick into the wall as they raced for 12th coming to the finish line. Well after they took the checkered flag, Patrick tapped the rear of Hornish’s car, and he slid into the wall.
“We talked a little bit to the folks last night and we’ll talk to them again at Darlington,” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Sunday morning. “But there’s not a history (in NASCAR) there. There’s not a lot of things.
“They both beat and banged on each other a little bit after the start/finish line. It didn’t go unnoticed and we’ll talk to them but we don’t see anything (else).”
Pemberton indicated that Patrick’s actions did not rise to the level of Kyle Busch retaliating against Ron Hornaday in a Truck Series race last November at Texas Motor Speedway, where Busch was suspended for the Nationwide and Cup events later that weekend.
Pemberton declined to say what specifically was different—“(Busch’s incident) is in the past,” he said—but said the situations were not comparable.
“Those two don’t have a history,” Pemberton said of Hornish and Patrick. “Not that that weighs into it, but when you look at it, it’s not been their typical way. It was just a long, hard race and they both made mistakes after the race.
“You can’t compare that to Kyle Busch. Every situation is different. … There’s not a blanket answer to any of this stuff.”
Hornish made the transition from IndyCar to full-time NASCAR racing in 2008, while Patrick is trying to make the same transition this season. In IndyCar racing, they never had a public feud but there had been a sense that they were not close friends.
Driving for Penske Racing, Hornish ran partial NASCAR schedules before jumping into Cup full time in 2008. He spent three years there until running in Nationwide the last two seasons. Patrick has run two partial Nationwide schedules and is doing a full Nationwide schedule this year for JR Motorsports along with a partial Cup schedule in cars prepared by Stewart-Haas Racing.
They have not had any run-ins in stock cars until Saturday.
Hornish said he could not avoid pinching Patrick toward the wall at the end of the race because he had a tire going flat.
“I’m mad to get wrecked after the race. … I couldn’t turn and couldn’t keep it down (off Patrick),” Hornish said. “And then the 7 (of Patrick) decided to turn me after the race was over into the wall.”
After the race, Hornish confronted Patrick to describe what happened on the last lap and it didn’t appear to be all that cordial of a conversation.
“I don’t know (if it was personal),” Patrick said. “He apologized, so I suppose it wasn’t, but I’m not really sure what happened.
“I’ve known Sam for a really long time and I know what to be ready for around him and I don’t know what happened.”
Both Patrick and Hornish can expect to be warned to not repeat what happened Saturday.
“It just happened to be one of those situations—those are two good competitors (and) they’re clean competitors,” Pemberton said. “We’ll just make sure it doesn’t go any further.”
