Hornaday Seeks Third Southwest Win in Row

Recent history will favor Ron Hornaday Jr. tonight when the NASCAR Southwest Tour makes its first of two appearances this season at Saugus Speedway.

Hornaday, a Palmdale resident and the tour’s defending champion, will try to tie a tour record with his third consecutive victory when he races on the one-third-mile paved oval he has called home throughout his racing career.

Hornaday might be in the driver’s seat, considering he won last September on the tour’s last visit to Saugus. Hornaday also won at Saugus in 1991.

Before that, Hornaday routinely was a winner at Saugus, where he posted a Modified division championship in 1979.

A more important goal for Hornaday, 34, is a second consecutive tour championship, which no driver has accomplished in the tour’s seven-year history.

With last weekend’s victory at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Hornaday took over the tour’s points lead from Doug George of Atwater, Calif.

“We really want to be the first to win two championships,” Hornaday said. “That’s our main goal this year.”

Only two drivers have won three consecutive Southwest Tour races: Dan Press of Frazier Park (1989) and Rick Carelli of Denver (1992). Press and Carelli share the tour record for victories in a season with eight.

“We’d like to get the single-season win record too,” said Hornaday, who is six shy of the mark.

Hornaday’s toughest competition could come from other former Saugus regulars, including Lance Hooper of Palmdale and Keith Spangler of Northridge.

Hooper, Saugus’ Sportsman division champion in 1991, is fifth in the tour’s points standings and is a leader in the race for rookie of the year. Spangler, another former Sportsman entry and tour rookie, is 13th in the tour’s standings and fifth among rookies.

He also is coming off a strong run at Sonoma. Spangler, who finished second in Saugus’ Sportsman race in 1989, charged from a 40th-place start to finish eighth, first among rookies. Hooper finished 18th.

Oval and figure-eight action in the Pro Stock division also is scheduled in a program that begins at 7.