It took a while for #9-Sam Hornish Jr.’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series test with Richard Petty Motorsports to get going on Tuesday, but he made the most of it. RPM’s newest hire made laps around Charlotte Motor Speedway in the first of two days of Goodyear tire testing at CMS for the 2015 season. Hornish, #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr., #27-Paul Menard and #19-Carl Edwards tested NASCAR’s new lower speed, lower downforce chassis. The good news was Hornish liked his car. The bad? He didn’t get to drive it enough. ‘I enjoyed it a lot, but it rained overnight and we didn’t get to go out on the track until noon,’ Hornish told SPEED SPORT. ‘It cut everything short as far as our day. We didn’t get to tune on the car as much as we wanted to, but we got to go through some of the stuff that Goodyear wanted us to do. We’ve got (Wednesday) and hopefully things will cool off and we’ll get a lot of testing in.’ Hornish’s first day of on-track action with the 15 percent horsepower reduction was as productive as it could be, given the delay. His first impressions of driving the #9 car were positive as well. ‘I’m just excited about getting the opportunity to work with the people at RPM,’ Hornish said. ‘It’s a new group of people and you need to (use the test to) talk to them and get to know them.’(NSSN)(12-11-2014)
