Hornaday Sets Truck Series Record With 5th Straight Win

((HT: Tennessean/Kreager))

The Camping World Truck Series master added to history Saturday night.

Ron Hornaday, Jr. ((pictured, thanks Larry McCormack/Tennessean)) led 115 of 154 laps at Nashville Superspeedway and won the Toyota Tundra 200 by .941 seconds over Brian Scott.

The win is Hornaday's fifth consecutive in the truck series — a series record. He set the record a week ago with four straight at Indianapolis.

Hornaday's five wins tie him with Richard Petty and Bobby Allison for the second most consecutive wins in any of NASCAR's top three series. Petty has the NASCAR record with 10 straight Cup wins in 1967. Petty and Allison each won five consecutive in 1971.

"You can never compare someone to the King or Bobby Allison," said Hornaday, who drives the No. 33 truck for Kevin Harvick Inc. "I'm just glad I'm in the same book with them."

Hornaday's win was his first in five truck starts at Nashville. He was fifth here last year and runner-up in 2007. The win is his 45th victory in 239 starts in the truck series. Hornaday has had 12 top-10 finishes in 13 races this season.

"I finally got a Sam Bass guitar (trophy)," Hornaday said. "Five (in a row) — can you believe that?"

Hornaday raised the Les Paul Gibson Guitar in Victory Circle after the race and gave it a kiss.

"That thing will be polished," Hornaday said. "This thing means so much to me.

"This is beautiful. I'm going to have to get smaller trophies because I don't think I can afford a Gibson guitar for the whole crew."

Kyle Busch won the Nationwide Series race here in June and then smashed the guitar trophy. Hornaday said he didn't think Busch considered the fallout that he would receive.

"I think it was a little disrespectful," Hornaday said. "I don't think Kyle really thought about it that way."

Sam Bass, who designs the artwork on the guitars, said this week that Busch has ordered three more guitars, which cost $1,700.

Hornaday leads the truck series by 216 points over Matt Crafton. Mike Skinner slipped from second to third, 248 points out of first, after finishing 14th.

"Right now, the KHI stuff with (Ron) Hornaday Jr. — they are in their own zip code," Skinner said.

The win marked the 27th win in the truck series for Hornaday's crew chief Rick Ren, who is now the all-time winningest crew chief in the series.

"That's an honor," Ren said. "A lot of people don't really realize how hard that is to do. What I really feel good is that I've done that with five different drivers."

Hornaday led 115 of the 154 laps. Several of the final laps came in a slight drizzle. He took the lead from polesitter Timothy Peters on lap 34, two laps before a competition yellow. Hornaday restarted fifth after the race's fourth caution, but charged to the front.

He made a three-wide pass at the start-finish line, passing Jason White and Scott four laps later.

The race ended with a green-white-checker finish. after Terry Cook spun and hit the wall in turn two with two laps to go. There were six caution periods in the race, including one for three laps near the midway point caused by rain.

"He's awesome," Scott said of Hornaday. "He's the master in the truck series. He's a legend."