Conversation: The Harvicks (cont'd)

DeLana: I think Kevin summed it up. Basically we do this because we're so competitive and we have that desire to win, but we both grew up -- my dad raced in the Busch Series and we had a little cube van and an open trailer when everybody else [had something better]. And we always sponsored it out of our own pocket, so I know what it's like not to have something. So to be able to give something as competitive as what we are now -- we struggled [in the beginning], like Kevin said, and when we hired Ron we asked him to be patient with us because we knew we weren't where we needed to be for him. And he was patient with us. And now, even in our Busch cars, to have guys like Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte wanting to drive for us, that says a lot. And between us, for next season [in Trucks] we've got guys with six Truck Series championships between them, and that's pretty impressive.

Kevin: But it's different. It's different to start a race team and to put myself in the trucks or to put Stewart in the cars. It's different when you go to run one guy full time for a championship, week in and week out, because all of a sudden every week matters, and not just a week here and there.

DeLana: And I think that's what, in the beginning, it was -- it only mattered every couple of weeks when we'd put Kevin or someone else out there. But to actually put together a team that's going to contend for championships -- we'd never done that before. It was a learning process, and to have it come together like it did -- there were so many pieces, like Kevin said. We added Ron, we added [crew chief] Rick Ren and then we had Camping World come on board.

And Ron's superstitions, and there was completely a switch that flipped with him when he got the blue-and-yellow colors back on his truck [he won the 1996 Truck Series title with a blue-and-yellow truck] -- he'll tell you that.

The pieces were there and everything just kind of came together. It was just a group of guys that believe in what we're doing. For a while it was difficult to get guys to come up [to Kernersville] and work because No. 1, we're far away from Charlotte, because that's kind of the hub where everybody's located. And No. 2, they're thinking, 'Are these guys really for real? Are they going to stick around?' And I think we've proven that we mean this -- this is what we're going to do.

Kevin: And that's a fact. They obviously haven't been up to our shop in Kernersville because a lot of people that come to work there, the first thing they do is go, 'We didn't know you had all this here' -- all the resources and the facility and the things to do it right.

Q: In the current young gun environment, how proud are you to win the Truck championship with Ron Hornaday, who with all the jokes about his age aside, seems like he's been racing for two lifetimes?

Kevin: I think they said he was the only guy in the Truck Series to win it in two decades [Sprague actually won titles in 1997, 1999 and 2001; Hornaday in 1996, 1998 and 2007)]. But we realized, and we have Cale Gale as the only [development driver] we're going to have, going forward, next year. But we realized we want solid, Truck racers to race our trucks. I'm going to race the Busch car and Cale's going to come up, but as we move forward, we want solid Truck racers, solid Busch racers -- and we don't need to develop anybody.

We're here to race in these two particular series and to race for championships. And in order to do that, you have to have people that want to race in that particular series -- so that makes it pretty special. We've learned that we don't need to be in the driver development part of it because we don't have anything to develop for.

Q: Kevin, how neat is it to put together a team owned by you and DeLana, with Rick Carelli and Ron Hornaday, who raced against each other and you on the West Coast? You slept on Hornaday's couch when you came east, and then you add Rick Ren and give him his first championship.

Kevin: For me, and I told DeLana this the other night, is that this is one of the neatest things I've ever been able to experience in my racing career -- and we've been fortunate to experience a lot of different things. But it's one of the neatest experiences just because it's as personal as it is professional.

Just because of my background with Ron and [Hornaday's wife] Lindy and everything they've done for me. To give that back is almost hard to explain because very few times in life do you get to give something this cool, and this big, back to somebody who helped to get you where you are today.

So for me -- and Jimmie Johnson and I had this conversation. He understands, because he was in the same situation [sleeping at Hornaday's when he first came from California], but there aren't many people who do because you just aren't able to give things like this back all the time. It's not that [Hornaday] didn't earn it. But it's just to be able to put him in this position and to be a part of the whole situation is very rewarding.

Q: DeLana, you saw how all this worked, racing with your dad and your uncle, Dickie Linville, in the Busch Series, but how do you see this all coming together?

DeLana: It's been hard to let it all sink in. I can't believe it actually happened. I told Kevin after we won the championship that had to be it for me, because emotionally I was shot -- I couldn't take it any more.

Kevin: She's a bad competitor.

DeLana: I'm not a good competitor -- I would crack under pressure and I don't know how these guys do it, week in and week out to get out there when there's so much on the line. But it's such an emotional thing -- it's everything that we've done, it's our heart and soul that we've put into building this company, and to have it all pay off is [great].

We got back to the motorhome after everything was over at Homestead and I asked [Kevin], 'How were you at the end of the race?' And he said he had cried for the last 20 laps.

To know Kevin and to know how that affected him, to me, was just -- I can't put into words what that means, because I know it's hard to find true friendship, and he and Ron Hornaday have a true friendship. And like [Kevin] said, there are not many times when you can truly give back to someone that's done so much.

I watched them hug each other after the race and Kevin's not a huge emotional person, but that was it -- I know it when I see it.

Q: How do you guys look at all the preparation for a banquet? Is it fun, a pain in the butt or just part of it -- and it's a good part of it?

Kevin: Well, I think from an owner's side you also learn a new lesson every time you go to a new venture, so it's been a little bit of a challenge just for the fact that [the Truck championship] all happened so fast and we didn't really know where we were going to fall until the race was over Friday night [at Homestead].

DeLana: Basically, it's all still about racing. Logistically it was a little difficult. We were tired after the [Homestead] Cup race, but then we got to the Hard Rock [Truck banquet site] and saw the team and that changed everything.

It completely changed our attitude and refreshed us -- just to see their smiles. I mean, some of those kids have never won races before or ever been a part of a championship, so they were at a banquet and -- just to see the looks on their faces was pretty cool.