Hornish “Outburst” Stuns Indy Garage Area

Note to the humorless: all of this is made up.

An uncharacteristic outburst from Indy 500 pole sitter Sam Hornish, Jr. caused a stunned silence in the Indy 500 garage area Wednesday.

“I think maybe the pressure of being on the pole at Indy is wearing on him," said Buster Jarsma, a mechanic for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing. “You could have heard a pin drop after Sam went off.”

According to several witnesses, Hornish accidentally knocked several wrenches off a bench and said, “"Gosh darn it!”" sharply. The garage area immediately came to a stunned silence. One woman who was walking with her 5-year-old daughter within 20 feet from Hornish the time clasp her hands over the child's ears and quickly hustled her away.

“"I mean, we get Dario in here busting off on his team all the time and nobody even gives it a second look,”" said Jarsma, "“but when Sam drops the 'darn it’' bomb, well, that got everyone'’s attention. Everyone looked at each other and said, ‘Was that Sam? What the f*ck?' ”"

Representatives for Team Penske said there was no truth to the rumor that Hornish also said "hell" at one point last week. Several people reported that Hornish pumped his fist twice and smiled for upwards of seven seconds after learning he won the Indy 500 pole.

"It was quite an outburst, I must say," said one fan who estimated Hornish's celebrated openly for about 18-seconds. "What can we expect if he wins it? A medium-sized 'woo-hoo!' or something way out there like, 'This is pretty darn nifty!' " Indy 500 broadcaster ABC was said to be mulling a five-second delay just to guard against any further "Hornish craziness."

In other news, the fact that IRL Rookie of the Year Sensation Danica Patrick (5' 2", 100 pounds) qualified in tenth stirred speculation that the ABC broadcasting crew wouldn't make their first reference to Danica until around the 17-second mark of the broadcast. Going into qualifications, Vegas oddsmakers put the first "Danica" reference at inside 10 seconds.