HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- In 2007, Ron Hornaday won his third career Craftsman Truck Series championship, and in the process gave owners Kevin and DeLana Harvick their first title in only the seventh season for their organization, Kevin Harvick Inc.

In doing so, Hornaday rekindled an intense, but respect-filled rivalry with the inaugural Truck Series champion Mike Skinner, which was not settled until Skinner's No. 5 Bill Davis Racing Toyota had a hub failure at Homestead that relegated him to a finish deep in the field.

Hornaday's latest championship was the result of a three-year building process at KHI, which followed a four-year stretch in which the native Californian raced three years in the Busch Series, with top-five points finishes each season; and one disastrous year in Cup with A.J. Foyt Racing.

On the eve of the Craftsman Truck Series' Awards Banquet at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Hornaday sat down to discuss his championship season, how special it is working with old buddies like Rick Carelli; and what the future holds racing with Jack Sprague at KHI.

Q: Does winning another championship, and the way you won it, battling tooth and nail to the wire with old rival Mike Skinner, add a few years on to your career?

Hornaday: Does it add years to my career? I hope not -- I hope that it just shows that I can still get it done. I mean, when I drive and I get behind the wheel of Kevin and DeLana's truck, it makes me feel like I'm an 18- or 20-year-old kid.

I just enjoy it. It is so much fun and I have a grin [on my face] every lap. I get tense out there because I'm the type of driver that wants to win, and I take it seriously. But it actually makes me feel younger when I get behind the wheel.

Q: This is your third Truck Series championship, but how special is this one, because it ties together you; [team manager] Rick Carelli, who you raced with in the Southwest Tour and Winston West days; [crew chief] Rick Ren, a Truck Series veteran winning his first title; and Kevin Harvick, another guy with West Coast connections?

Hornaday: This is my sixth championship, and my fifth in NASCAR, with my two Southwest Tour titles [in 1992-93]; we spent everything we had and just went out there in '93 and won everything. And then, [to get] the phone call from Dale [Earnhardt, to drive his truck in the inaugural Truck Series] and winning the first championship for him in '96 -- that was special.

But to come to Kevin Harvick Incorporated and to win their first [championship] -- to come across that start/finish line [at Homestead] -- you want to do a burnout, but all of a sudden you see the boss in front of you, going into Turn 1; and you want to catch him and see where he's going, and just make sure that I congratulate him first.

And he stopped on the back straightaway with the pace truck, and he's already out of his truck and I stop to get out of mine, and I don't even get my whole body out -- my right leg is still in there, and he just gives me a big hug with tears in his eyes.

That there will be the specialist moment of my career: To see Kevin's face after I won this championship for him. I've got tears in my eyes right now just thinking about it.

This is what it's all about -- the emotion of what Kevin thought I did for him, which is nothing compared to what he's done for me: To believe in me at 49 years old and to give me my second chance in racing, basically and to believe in me.

Last year, we ran rather well, but didn't finish that good in points. We were running good everywhere we went and stupid things would happen. But to get Rick Ren over there and Rick Carelli and them guys put the right people in the right places.

And Rick Carelli taking all the grief and all the crap from me -- being my spotter -- it's special. He's a racer and he understands -- and Rick Ren's a racer and Kevin Harvick's a racer and DeLana's drove and she's a racer.

It's special. You don't have to make excuses. They'll fix it. You know they're going to make that truck comfortable and I'll drive it 120 percent every lap.

Q: What was the highlight of the season for you, other than those last few laps -- and then after the checkered flag, at Homestead?

Hornaday: Doing the burnout into Victory Lane at Lowe's was cool. That actually started at Kentucky [in 2006] when the ground was wet and it slipped and started spinning, so I just kept it going; and it started there. I actually got in trouble at Lowe's doing that burnout.

Three-time champ

Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday and team owners Kevin and DeLana Harvick celebrated a historic moment at the this year's banquet.

• Complete story, click here
• Menzer: What a rivalry

But I cannot pinpoint one race -- maybe Loudon [N.H.], to have a dominant truck like we had. But every week when we unloaded, we had a truck to win with. It might not have been the fastest truck, but it was definitely the most comfortable truck and the fastest truck on long runs, and that's all we worked on.

To have that, 25 weeks out of the year, is something special.

Q: Compare the three Truck Series championships, if you could?

Hornaday: When we were sitting in Victory Lane [at Homestead], celebrating and all that; and everything got nice and quiet and Kevin yelled at the guys and said, "You guys make sure you leave that truck exactly as it is -- that's mine for the barn."

You don't know how special that was to me, because Kevin and DeLana are going to own race teams for a long time -- and I'll probably quit driving and I may be washing windows there at Kevin Harvick Incorporated, but [that truck will be there].

When I took some friends, a month or a month-and-a-half ago to DEI, and they were moving their stuff over to Ginn; but to walk through there and to still have access like I have -- to go through the back rooms and all that stuff -- and to still see my truck that I won the championship for Dale Earnhardt in 1996 -- his very first championship -- is something special.

Now, 20 years from now I can take my grandkids up to Kevin Harvick Incorporated and show them the championship truck that I drove -- and that's something special to me, right there.

Q: You've owned racecars and run your own race team; so how impressed are you with what Kevin and DeLana have put together up in Kernersville, N.C.?

Hornaday: I don't think anybody in this whole racing organization, racing environment -- could do what he's done; in racing all three series in one weekend; building the team; all the press and all the stuff he's got to do, week in and week out; and to still look as good as he does and to still love racing as much as he does, is unbelievable.

So I'm so impressed to see how much he likes his equipment, the way his people look at the shop and how he treats them like family. He's grown up a lot. I've raced with him before, when he was "The Kid" and I was in my prime -- I don't know what I was, 30, or something like that, 35.

His dad and him always put nice racecars together and stuff like that, so when they [Kevin and DeLana] asked me to drive for them, I didn't even hesitate -- he didn't have to tell me how much money, or anything.

So this is something special, to see what they've built in a short amount of time. The banner is going to be pretty big. Our shop -- Kevin's shop has pretty tall ceilings and everybody that's won a race, he's been putting banners up; so he's got Tony Stewart's and Kevin Harvick's and some of mine up there.

Now, this championship banner, just to make the shop look so fulfilled; and to be the first one to put a championship banner up there for Kevin and DeLana is something special.

Q: Speaking of special, as you look to the 2008 season -- and as you look back on your Craftsman Truck Series career -- could you ever imagine you and Jack Sprague as teammates?

Hornaday: I was hoping that I pushed for that. Jack was asking me about it, and that he had heard about [Kevin and DeLana running] a second truck; and he wanted me to talk to Kevin. He said, 'Tell him I'm really not looking, but I don't know what's going on over here [at Wyler Racing.'] So I asked Jack if he wanted me to ask Kevin if he wanted a job, or not?

Kevin and I talked, and he had looked at some other drivers, but he didn't know how really good friends Jack and I were. Jack's kinda got a driving style like mine: He likes to drive it in deep, the thing's got to rotate and then you can get on the gas hard.

The trucks nowadays have changed a little bit, just with the downforce and how fast you get to the corners. So with Jack Sprague coming over -- I'll go back a little bit, to when Kevin put the second truck out there, and when him and Clint Bowyer started racing it.

That just helped our program with the No. 33 truck out, so that both trucks can leave the shop the same, and if they go a different direction at the track, it just picks up the speed on both so much quicker -- especially when Kevin drives it, because he can go back there and say 'here's what I'm feeling and here's what's wrong with the truck and here's what we need to change on these trucks.'

But with me saying that, it always costs money to do that, and I'm not the one to say that -- I'm just the one to let Rick Ren know that and he's the one to go back [to management]. But with Kevin driving, it just accelerates our program that much faster.

Q: Is all the banquet preparation, the rehearsals, fun, a pain in the butt or just part of it -- and part you don't mind putting up with?

Hornaday: It's out of my element. You give me a helmet and a steering wheel and I'd rather be doing that. A lot of people are comfortable, sitting behind a desk and pushing buttons on computers and doing those kinds of things.

My element is sitting behind the wheel. I don't like standing in front of my peers and trying to tell them how good I am. Because I'm not -- I'm only as good as my team.

I'm going to go up there and thank my sponsors and ditto what Rick Ren and Kevin Harvick said. I don't write speeches -- I speak from my heart. I write down names of people that have helped me in my career -- hopefully I can wing it and it sounds halfway decent.

If it don't, it don't. I don't get paid to stand up in front of those people and talk -- I get paid to drive and I think I do a decent job with that; and hopefully I can get Kevin and DeLana another championship next year.

Q: You've run Busch and Cup, but it really seems like the Truck Series was made for Ron Hornaday -- so what is it about the trucks that you and Skinner and Johnny Benson fit so well in this series?

Hornaday: Why don't you talk to Kevin Harvick and have him build a Busch car and have Rick Ren crew chief it and I'll drive it and we'll show you that we can still do it.

The trucks are fun. I mean, these things got a lot of downforce. Rick Ren is very, very sharp about what he does. It's an honor to have Rick Ren for your crew chief. Ten years ago, we couldn't work together. He was really strong-headed and I'm really strong-headed; but we understand that now.

That's why, when we're all said and done, Rick Carelli is probably the worst guy that takes a beating. He's probably learned more words from me [this season] than he's ever heard in his life.

That's what it takes for a great team and Rick Ren has put a great team together that has big shoulders, and when we leave that shop they leave their feelings at home because we're there to do one thing and that's to win races.

Q: How did the opportunity with Kevin come about?

Hornaday: I got offered more money to go other places, but when Kevin asked me to do it we never talked about price. I just said, 'yes, I'll do it.' He asked me to do Busch races, I don't ask him how much he pays me, I'm just going to do it because we win races, he'll take care of me and that's what I always felt. Money will fall where it falls.

If I get an opportunity to win, I know Kevin Harvick, what he's done with his dad and what they've done in their racing career when Kevin Harvick was 'The Kid' for seven years at Bakersfield -- they've had classes of equipment.

When Kevin built that shop and he came down to Phoenix and whipped everybody's butt in a truck, I knew it was going to run good. When he gave me that phone call, him personally, and I got hired over the phone, I didn't even have to go see him.