Defending champ back

INDIANAPOLIS – Almost a year later, Sam Hornish Jr. still finds his incredible last-lap Indianapolis 500 victory hard to believe.

Trailing rookie Marco Andretti out of the fourth and final turn, Hornish waited until the last possible moment, veered alongside him on the front straightaway and beat him to the checkered flag by an almost imperceptible eye-blink.

“Some days I wake up and still can’t believe it’s true,” Hornish said Wednesday.

“That’s pretty special, because of all the ways you can win a race, you’d think pretty much anything that can happen has happened. But this was unexplored territory.”

It was the first time in Indy 500 history the race was won with a pass on the final lap.

“Of course, if I had my choice, I would have won by half a lap,” Hornish said.

Hornish’s comments came as Penske Racing filed entries for Hornish and teammate Helio Castroneves, a two-time Indy winner, for the May 27 race.

“It was a tremendous burden to have that lifted off my shoulders,” Hornish said of his first win in seven starts at Indianapolis. “I don’t know if it necessarily has (sunk in) yet. It sinks in a little more each time. … The final piece of the puzzle really will be on the first phase of veteran practice when all the past winners get to drive around the track. That’s when the whole thing will sink in.”

Practice will begin with the annual rookie orientation program on May 6-7. The veterans will hit the track the next day.

The entry deadline was at midnight, although any entries postmarked before then will be accepted. A final entry list was not expected until next week, Speedway spokesman Ron Green said.

Among the other entries received were cars by A.J. Foyt Racing for Darren Manning and by Sam Schmidt Motorsports with no driver listed.

Tuesday’s entries included 10 cars by Andretti Green Racing for co-owner Michael Andretti, his son Marco and teammates Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti.

Michael Andretti, who came out of retirement for last year’s race and was oh-so-close to finally winning at Indianapolis, said the decision to come back and try for his 16th Indy start was easy.

“I felt I still had what it takes to win the race,” Michael said. “Had I finished 10th or something and not felt like I was competitive, I’m sure I would have looked at it differently.”

Andretti, whose 430 career laps led is a record for race non-winners, lost the lead to Marco with three laps to go, two laps before Hornish’s final pass for the victory.

“At the end, to be able to actually go for the win, it definitely had a lot to do with me sitting here right now,” Michael said during the media tour.

Kanaan was fifth last year and Franchitti was seventh, giving Andretti Green four of the top seven spots. Patrick, then driving for Rahal Letterman Racing, was eighth.

Patrick will be trying for her first Indy start for Andretti Green after two years with Rahal Letterman. She was the rookie of the year in 2005, when she started and finished fourth and became the first woman to lead at Indy, and she was eighth last year.

Sarah Fisher and rookie Milka Duno were listed on entries last month, offering the possibility for the first Indy lineup with three women.

Other entries Tuesday included two Panther Racing cars each for veteran Vitor Meira, the runner-up in 2005, and Kosuke Matsuura, the 2004 rookie of the year. No drivers were assigned to entries by Vision Racing, which last month entered cars for Tomas Scheckter, Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV, or by Beck Motorsports.