| | Associated Press
CLERMONT, Ind. -- Ron Hornaday finally figured out how to stay in front of Jeff Purvis.
"I don't think I held anybody off. I was just driving my guts
out," said Hornaday, who barely kept Purvis at bumper's length
over the final five laps and won the NASCAR Kroger 200 Friday
night.
"They kept saying, 'He's going low,' and I started scratching
my head and saying, 'Man, I caught him running low, so what am I
doing up here?' So I started running low and pulled away a little
bit," said Hornaday, a Busch Series rookie who won his second race
in a month.
Hornaday, a two-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion,
held a slim lead when a crash by Buckshot Jones brought the yellow
caution light out with eight laps remaining. The green came out
after 195 of the 200 laps on the Indianapolis Raceway Park oval,
but Purvis, who lost the lead to Hornaday after an earlier restart,
was unable to catch him.
"We had a pretty good run coming off and I got side-by-side
going in there," Hornaday said of his earlier pass of Purvis on
lap 152. "He ran me in the corner pretty hard, and the back end
kind of jumped up a little bit. We didn't touch, but I squeezed
him. But he was a gentleman and came over and said, 'I'd have done
the same thing."'
Hornaday, who started 16th in the 43-car field, averaged 79.626
mph and beat Purvis by 0.309 second to win $43,775 from the
$634,471 purse. Jeff Green, the series points leader, led the early
part of the race and finished third, and pole-starter Jason Leffler
was fourth.
"I had a run on him a time or two, but he cut me off every
time," Purvis said. "I guess that's what the leader is supposed
to do.
"When they threw that last caution, coming to the corner where
I was really, really good, I think I had a good shot at winning the
race, but the caution didn't work out. It wasn't meant to be, I
guess."
Hornaday's only other Busch victory in 30 career starts was on July 16 at Nazareth, Pa.
Green led 113 of the first 120 laps.
"If we had run the last 50 or 60 laps under the green, it might
have been different. But those 10-lap segments didn't give me
enough time to get going," said Green, referring to the three
yellows in the final 43 laps. "You never know what can happen."
Green started from the outside of the front row and took the
lead from the rookie Leffler after the first lap. The two began
lapping the slowest cars within the first 23 laps on the .686-mile
IRP oval, and Green yielded the lead only briefly, after a pit stop
when a crash by Lyndon Amick brought out the yellow.
Blaise Alexander, who did not make a pit stop, took the lead,
but Green went back in front within three laps after the green was
displayed.
Halfway through the 200-lap race, Green had a 1.3-second lead
over Kevin Harvick, the series' top rookie, who won his first race
last week at Madison, Ill. But a multicar pileup on lap 119 brought
all the leaders into the pits, and Purvis came out first to take
the lead over Hornaday and Green.
Trying for his first Busch victory in four years, Purvis stayed in front until another yellow for a seven-car crash after 142 laps. This time, when the green came out nine laps later, Hornaday passed Purvis in turn four and stayed in front the rest of the way.
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ALSO SEE
Busch Series Kroger 200 results
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Ron Hornaday kept a slim lead to take the checkered flag.
avi: 1370 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
With 4 laps to go, Ron Hornaday holds off a Jeff Purvis run for the lead.
avi: 1710 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
 Kroger 200 winner Ron Hornaday thanks his crew for putting in a great effort.
wav: 158 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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