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For some, being the best isn't always good enough.

Sam Hornish Jr. was headed that way in the IndyCar Series a couple of years ago. But the comfort and security that goes with winning didn't quell his desire for something else: a new challenge.

He found it in NASCAR.

It's a path many open-wheel drivers have tried but few succeed. That didn't sway Hornish. Neither did the idea that he would have to learn a new car, one that has perplexed some of NASCAR's top drivers.

As he made this change and prepared for his rookie season last year, he became a first-time father. Suddenly new responsibilities and stresses were added to this daunting move.

"It's either going to be the most gratifying thing I do," Hornish says, " ... or it's going to be the biggest mistake I've ever made."

* * *

To many, Hornish is a name that flashes across the top of the screen from time to time during Sprint Cup TV broadcasts. An inconsistent season has him 27th in the point standings heading into Saturday night's race at Richmond International Raceway.

Hornish doesn't have to be in NASCAR. He won the 2006 Indianapolis 500, was a three-time IndyCar champion and, until recently, was the series' all-time leading race winner.

Why is he in Richmond trying to qualify a stock car? It was the next series upward.

Blame — or credit — Hornish's father.

When Hornish started racing go-karts at age 11, he figured he'd race about half a dozen times a year, if that. Then he started winning. His father moved him up quickly, a pattern that would be repeated often.

Hornish recalls going to Rockingham as a teenager to compete in nationals. He had driven a go-kart on an asphalt road course three times before. He raced teens who had competed on that type of track for years. Hornish was lapped. Twice.

Such experiences steeled Hornish to challenges, including his move to NASCAR. It doesn't mean he won't get frustrated or upset at times, but it does mean he learned to keep going.

Just as he did after he failed to qualify for his first six Cup races late in the 2007 season — three times missing the race by less than a tenth of a second.

"I guess I am stubborn enough not to quit," says the 30-year-old from the Ohio town appropriately called Defiance.

Had he not been so stubborn, he likely still would be back racing Indy cars. For every Tony Stewart who makes the successful transition from Indy cars to NASCAR, there is a Dario Franchitti who doesn't.

* * *

About eight hours before last weekend's race in Atlanta, Hornish walks through the infield with his wife Crystal and pushes the stroller for his 19-month-old daughter. Addison is content, shaded from the sun and sucking her pacifier.

She was born less than two weeks before Hornish began his rookie season in Cup.

The toughest part, Hornish admits, might have come after Addison's birth. His wife had been there whenever he raced. When the day was over, they often went out to eat dinner instead of sequestering themselves in their motorhome.

But with a newborn, she didn't travel with Hornish for about five races.

"You don't know what to do with yourself at times," Hornish. "You're used to having someone there to talk to."

Crystal, with a baby book nearby as she sits in the couple's motorhome, says Addison has been a blessing for her husband. She recalls a miserable Pocono race last year for Hornish where he was a part of three accidents. She and Hornish's parents were in the motorhome, and "we're all just kind of like what do we say, what do we do" when he arrived.

Hornish entered, saw Addison, picked her up and started smiling.

"He acted like nothing had even happened," Crystal says.

That was true, Hornish said, until Addison went to bed. Then it was back to figuring how to improve.

* * *

His results can tease. A fifth-place finish at Michigan last month was followed by a 35th-place finish at Bristol. Five times this season, he's gone from a top-10 one week to placing 30th or worse the next race.

Each night at the track, Hornish has homework. After practices, qualifying and races, he has a standard list of questions about the car and how it handled. He records the details, sends them to his crew chief, Travis Geisler, and keeps them in his files for the next time he returns to a track.

It is designed to help him to follow the path of Montoya. Tim Cindric, president of Penske Racing, says the team is gauging Hornish's performance off Montoya, who is eighth in the standings entering this week.

Cindric said Montoya finished 25th in points last year. To climb higher, Cindric says Hornish needs to improve his patience, qualify better and not drive the car so hard into the corners.

Maybe not as big of a challenge as going from one racing series to another, but there remains a challenge for Hornish.

"My goal," he says, "is still to get to the point where I can win over here."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com