The 21-year-old Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie has never been to Brainerd. But he's saying all the right things before to his inaugural visit to the Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway.
"I hear it's one place you have to visit before you're done," Horne said.
Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie Doug Horne sped down the course on his Horne Racing Buell earlier this year. The 21-year-old driver stands in fourth place heading into the Lucas Oil Nationals at BIR.
Horne will get his chance Thursday when he takes his Horne Racing Buell into qualifying.
Horne is having a rookie campaign to remember as he sits fourth in the season points standings with three races to go before the Countdown to the Championship.
Douglas Horne
Category: Pro Stock Motorcycle
Hometown: Aberdeen, Md.
Age: 21
Sponsor/Bike: Horne Racing Buell
Crew Chief: Bob Taft
Career wins: 0
2009 wins/final rounds: 0/2
Current points standing: Fourth
"I never thought I would be having the year I've had," said Horne. "I thought maybe at the end of the season we would be getting mid-to-low qualifying spots. We had a rookie driver, a rookie crew and a brand new bike. I'm very happy with the way things have gone.
"My goal was to qualify at every event I went to. So far I've done that."
Horne's done that and more. In his first Pro Stock event, he qualified 13th and fell to Angie McBride in the first round of elimination. He bounced back at the next event to qualify fifth and advance to the finals of the O'Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston. There he lost to Craig Treble.
He made his second finals at the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals April 19. After qualifying fifth again, Horne advanced up the ladder before falling to Eddie Krawiec.
Doug Horne: "I'm very happy with the way things have gone."
He qualified No. 1 in Chicago and advanced to the semifinals at the Western Nationals.
At Sonoma, the last race prior to BIR, he again made the semifinals before falling to Krawiec.
"There's always room for improvement," said Horne. "Going into the finals in three races we were so happy. We got a little momentum and even with a new crew I told my dad and sister it is possible for us to win. All these other guys were winning, why couldn't we? I caught on really quickly with the whole thing. The whole team has done great with a rookie driver and a brand new bike."
Horne is 257 points behind points leader Krawiec and trails third-place driver Matt Smith by 56 points, but he's 194 points head of 10th-place driver Karen Stoffer.
Still he and his rookie team are trying to gain as much experience and knowledge as they can before the Countdown, which begins Sept. 2 in Concord, N.C.
"We're always tweaking," said Horne, who won the AHDRA Pro Fuel national championship last season. "You can never have enough power. We'll keep working on the set-up. I think we showed at Sonoma that we've turned the corner. I just need to stay focused as a driver.
"Brained could be a good race for us. It will be our first real go since our test session. At Sonoma and Denver we didn't qualify all that great, but on every run we got faster. In Denver we went faster every single round. It was the same thing at Sonoma, except on race day. We were right there."
JEREMY MILLSOP may be reached at jeremy.millsop@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5856.
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