NASCAR: Five Teams That Needed To Regroup During Off-Week

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Sam Hornish Jr.  

The 2015 season just hasn’t gone the way that Sam Hornish Jr. and RPM might have envisioned when it was announced that Hornish Jr. would be taking over for Marcos Ambrose in the No. 9 machine.

Hornish Jr. jumped out to a promising start in the Daytona 500 when he finished in 12th. Since Daytona the no. 9 car has not had a top-20 finish while it has endured three consecutive finishes outside of the top-30. One of the things that Hornish Jr. needs to improve on is qualifying. In four of the six race in 2015, Hornish Jr. has qualified 27th or worse. While qualifying doesn’t necessarily guarantee a better finishing spot it certainly doesn’t help with the effort.

If the No. 9 team is able to improve their qualifying as the season goes on it should help there finishes some. Aside from that Hornish Jr. simply needs to find a way to deliver. He talked in the pre-season about how being with RPM is like a “second chance” for him. That being said, he needs to now take advantage of that second chance.