Hornaday becomes oldest champ; Robby Gordon looking for sponsorship

Ron Hornaday, who is 51 years old, becomes the oldest champion in NASCAR's national series after winning the Camping World Truck series title on Friday night at Phoenix. The previous oldest champion was Ted Musgrave, who was 49 years, 11 months and 1 day when he won the 2005 series title. This is Hornaday's fourth title.

Hornaday captured the title by finishing fourth, while teammate/boss Kevin Harvick won the race.  Hornaday clinches a race early. The truck series concludes its season next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Hornaday says he's not done yet. Hornaday noted that his team is racing the Billy Ballew team for the owners point title (Ballew's ride is the one Kyle Busch has raced much of the year).

Kyle Busch has a chance to clinch the Nationwide series title on Saturday at Phoenix, which also would come a week ahead of that series' season finale at Homestead.

# Robby Gordon says he has only sponsorship for eight races next year and he'll put those on his car at the beginning of the season, giving him fully sponsored rides through March.

Gordon also said that he's run nearly one-third of the races this season on his own dime even though he kept sponsor decals on his Cup car.

“We’re set through March, which buys us time because it gives us the rest of the winter to sell and the first three months of next year to see where the economy is at,’’ Gordon said.

One of Gordon’s sponsors, Jim Beam, announced a couple of months ago it would not return to the sport after this season.

“Obviously are results are not the best,’’ said Gordon, who has run a fulltime schedule with his own team since 2006. “It’s easy to go out there and blame the economy for everything, but if we ran better _ you see teams get sponsorship that win races.’’

Gordon is 34th in the driver standings. Other than a third-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600, he has not placed in the top 10 this season. Asked if would have to lay off personnel after this season, Gordon said: “We’re going to have to do some of that but everybody does that at the end of the year. That’s the part we don’t like.’’

Gordon has been searching for money all season and says he’s been funding some races himself even though he kept sponsor decals on races instead of having a blank car. Among the tracks Gordon did not sell sponsorship for this season were both races at Martinsville, Richmond, Dover, Pocono, Fontana, Calif., and one race at Michigan.

# Denny Hamlin says he thinks NASCAR should have a driver advisory board. He's still upset about Talladega where some drivers went to NASCAR asking series officials to not allow any push-drafting or bump-drafting in the corners. Jeff Gordon said last week at Talladega that he was one of the drivers who asked NASCAR to make such a change. That has not sat well with Hamlin.

So, Hamlin was asked about having a driver's board.

"I think we should probably have a board and it should be six or seven guys,'' Hamlin said, suggesting Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson be on it along with some younger drivers. "

Asked about how he's become more vocal about his opinions lately in public, Hamlin said: "It just bugged me when I heard the whole Talladega thing. That really just bugged me. I thought it was just NASCAR saying we're doing this on our own and we just came up with it, but when I heard that someone influenced them that kind of got on my nerves.''

# Carl Edwards says his plan is to run the Nationwide series fulltime the next two seasons.  "That could change,'' he said, "but I enjoy it.''

# The U.S. Army announced that it will be back as sponsor of Ryan Newman's car for next season. The Army will be the primary sponsor on Newman's car in 15 races -- 7 fewer points races than this season. This season the Army paid $11.6 million to be on Newman's car for 23 total races (22 points races and the All-Star race). That equates to about $500,000 per race.

# Carquest will be a primary sponsor on Mark Martin's car for eight races in 2010 and 2011, Hendrick Motorsports announced.

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