Defending race winner Hornish expects another close battle source: indycar.com / Dave Lewandowski Sam Hornish Jr. will have to find another venue for his 28th birthday party. The IndyCar Series won't be competing at Kansas Speedway on July 2 as it has the previous three years. That's the lesser of his concerns. This weekend, the defending race winner of the Kansas Lottery Indy 300 and Team Penske must quickly find the handle on the 1.5-mile oval. Temperatures about 30 degrees cooler will greet drivers and their engineers this weekend, which could negate any perceived Hornish advantage. And they'll have only two hours to hone the setup before qualifying (4:15 p.m. EDT April 28; watch it on indycar.com). "Everything is kind of up in the air this year," said Hornish, the reigning IndyCar Series titlist who is 27 points behind leader Dan Wheldon in the championship standings after three rounds. "One of the things I loved about going to Kansas was it was my birthday and we knew it was always going to be hot. Most of the days when it's hot out the track gets slippery; that's when I think we have an advantage. We'll have to figure out a way to have a new advantage this year." Hornish, who led a field-high 146 laps and beat Wheldon by 0.0793 of a second last year, expects another close finish despite/because of the forecast for temperatures in the low-70s. Five of the six IndyCar Series races have had margins of victory of less than a second, including the second-closest in series history in 2004 (Buddy Rice over Vitor Meira by 0.0051 of a second). "It kind of makes you wonder what the racing is going to be like," said Hornish, who also has a pair of runner-up finishes at Kansas. "Technically, usually the colder it gets to a point the closer the racing becomes. "I also think this weekend will be good preparation for Indy. It's a track where we average over 200 mph, and the circuit has low banking, which for a mile and a half oval certainly makes it a handling track. So it should definitely be a good preview and warm-up for Indianapolis."
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