Hornaday wins NASCAR Trucks

LOUDON, N.H. - Ron Hornaday dominated Saturday's New Hampshire 200.

Hornaday led 174 of 200 laps on his way to winning his second NASCAR Truck Series race at New Hampshire International Speedway, but his stout performance didn't give him much breathing room in the championship race.

Mike Skinner, who trailed Hornaday by four points entering the race, finished third and is 29 points behind, well within striking distance to deny Hornaday his third series title.

The win is the 33rd of Hornaday's 10-year career and the fourth this season _ the most since 1998 when he had six and won the second championship. Hornaday is trying to give Kevin Harvick Inc. its first series title. Hornaday's other titles came with Dale Earnhardt Inc.

"This is the same truck we finished second with three times and we finally got it a win," Hornaday said. "We had a truck to beat today. It's unbelievable to race this hard and have a truck that runs this good.

"If we didn't do that well, Skinner would have, so we need to get everything we can when we can."

Hornaday's competition noticed his good fortune. Rain washed out qualifying Saturday so the field was set by points, with Hornaday and Skinner starting from the front row.

"We just flat out got our butts whipped today. He just put on a clinic. He just flat-out out-run us," said Skinner. "I was hoping for a caution, hoping maybe Erik (Darnell) could get up there and make it exciting anyway."

Darnell had a strong truck, but he couldn't run down Hornaday and there was no caution in the final 55 laps to bunch the field.

"It's a little bit frustrating to know both of us were as good as we were and still not good enough to catch Hornaday," Darnell said of himself and Skirner. "A caution at the end would have given us a chance to see if we could have raced with him."