AP Photos
By The Associated Press
A year ago, Ron Hornaday Jr. was trailing Mike Skinner by 57 points in the championship when he showed up in Phoenix for the next to last NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race of the season.
That's when Hornaday started the second-biggest comeback in series history to win his third truck title.
If he wants a fourth championship, he won't have such a mountain to climb. He's second again heading to Phoenix International Raceway, but this time just six points behind Johnny Benson Jr. That's the narrowest lead with two races remaining in the 14-year history of the series.
The previous closest at this stage of the season was 2004, when Bobby Hamilton led Dennis Setzer by seven points. Hamilton went on to win the title.
Both Hornaday and Benson have been racing well all season. Hornaday has won six times to Benson's five. Each has 14 top-fives and 17 top-10 finishes.
"This is unbelievable, I just can't seem to shake him," Hornaday said looking forward to Friday's Lucas 150 at Phoenix. "This is fun. This is what racing is all about."
Neither of the contenders appears to have much of an advantage on the one-mile Phoenix oval, either.
Hornaday, who drives for Kevin Harvick Inc., has won twice, while Benson, driving for Bill Davis Racing, has one win. Benson has finished among the top-10 at the Arizona track in 85.6 percent of his seven truck starts there, while Hornaday has a top-10 percentage of 84.6 in 13 Phoenix appearances.
Benson, who led Hornaday by 65 points after winning at Martinsville two weeks ago, won the Nationwide " then Busch " title in 1995.
"We show up every week with a truck that is capable of running up front," Benson said. "They have shown they are a championship-caliber team. They have dealt with adversity and bounced back, which is the sign of a strong unit. I am really proud of all that we have accomplished."
LATE-SEASON CHARGE: NHRA Funny Car driver Cruz Pedregon has gone from sixth place, 115 points behind, to a 12-point lead with consecutive wins in the last two events.
Pedregon is seeking his second championship and first since 1992, when he broke up John Force's stretch of 12 titles in 13 years. If Pedregon does take the title, it will mean Force, with 14, or one of the Pedregons " Cruz or brother Tony, a two-time champ " will have won all but one Funny Car championship since 1990. Gary Scelzi won in 2005.
Cruz Pedregon will go into the season-finale at Pomona, Calif., Nov. 13-16 ahead of runner-up Robert Wilkerson by 12 points and 39 in front of Robert Hight.
Wilkerson is trying to become only the second tuner-driver, and first since Shirl Greer in 1974, to win a Funny Car championship, while Hight, Force's son-in-law, would love to add his first title to winning rookie of the year in 2005.
In winning his first title, Pedregon finished the season with five straight event wins to pass Force.
"I didn't want to get caught up in the championship points," Pedregon said of his latest win last Sunday at Las Vegas. "I just went out there and tried to maintain my emotions because it seemed like every round was like a championship round. And I expect it will be more of the same at Pomona."
AMERICAN WINNERS: Sixteen-year-old Conor Daly, son of longtime open-wheel star Derek Daly, won the Walter Hayes Trophy race on Sunday in treacherous conditions at the Silverstone track.
That capped a very successful foray to England by Daly and fellow 2008 Team USA Scholarship winner Josef Newgarden, a 17-year-old from Hendersonville, Tenn., who two weeks earlier became the first American to win the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. Daly, from Noblesville, Ind., took the lead on the cold wet day halfway through the race when Scottish Formula Ford champion Graham Carroll slid off the track. He went on to become the youngest driver to win the Hayes trophy, named after one of the originators of the Formula Ford. ©
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