Hornaday Trucks to the Front
2007 may have produced the third NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship for Ron Hornaday – driver of the no. 33 Camping World/RVs.com Chevrolet owned by Kevin Harvick Inc. – but, I guarantee that if you ask him if it gets any easier the third time around, his response would produce a resounding “no”. See, Hornaday may have been an absolute model of consistency this year, winning four races throughout the season and finishing only three of the twenty-five races outside of the top ten (one of which was an 11th place run at Atlanta). But, Hornaday wasn’t the only one that was “trucking along” this year. Mike Skinner got off to a rocket start by finishing fourth at Daytona in the season opener and then rattling off three consecutive wins putting him in first place with a 94 point lead over Todd Bodine just four races into it. At that point, Hornaday sat in fourth, 144 points out of it.
Hornaday refused to be intimidated by Skinner’s dominance, though. He continued to battle week in and week out and quickly found himself in second place. He finally cut Skinner’s lead down to 77 points when Mike finally finished his first race of the year outside of the top ten when he came home 20th at O’Reilly’s … a race in which Hornaday won. The big blow, however, came three races later when Skinner finished 28th at Gateway while Ron came across the line in 2nd. This gave Hornaday his first points lead of the season, holding a four point lead over Skinner – who had the lead since the third race of the year. The lead was short-lived, however, has he handed the lead back over to Skinner two races later with a 22nd place finish at Las Vegas.
Hornaday would hold the lead two more times heading into Homestead, neither of which lasted longer than a week. Going into the final race of the season, Skinner held a 29 point lead over Hornaday, setting the stage for a potentially epic shootout. That turned out not to be the case, though, as Skinner lost a wheel in the season finale. Hornaday brought his Chevy home in the seventh position, which was more than enough to solidify his third Truck Series Championship. Big kudos go out to both Hornaday and Skinner for giving NASCAR fans something to hold their breath about in a season of pure boredom. This series typically doesn’t get enough play from the fans, but I’ve gotta say that this year, they certainly were the ones “getting it done.”
Season Stats:
Wins – 4
Top Five’s – 13
Top Ten’s – 22
Poles – 1
Avg Start – 9th
Avg Finish – 5th
Season Victories:
- Lowe’s
- Dover
- O’Reilly Raceway Park
- New Hampshire
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