Conversation: The Harvicks

For three successive weeks, from virtually one end of the Eastern seaboard to the other, Kevin and DeLana Harvick have tripped along NASCAR's postseason banquet trail.

And far from despising the scheduling, travel and primping that go with each affair, the Harvicks -- the only couple among NASCAR's hundreds of competitors in its three national tours to attend all three -- love it. Because attending a banquet equates with a successful season -- and to a person, that's what every competitor in NASCAR is about. That tag certainly fits the couple from opposite sides of the country.

This weekend the Harvicks are back in Central Florida for Friday night's Busch Series awards ceremony with a two-pronged purpose: Kevin as the fourth-place driver for Richard Childress Racing and the co-driver, as well as the co-owner, with wife DeLana, of the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet that finished sixth in the Busch owner standings.

Greener pastures

Kevin Harvick finished 10th in the Cup Series points but ranked third in overall money thanks to his Daytona 500 win.

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Last week in New York, the Harvicks celebrated Kevin's 10th-place finish in the Nextel Cup driver standings aboard Childress' No. 29 Chevy, while two weeks ago in South Florida, they were honored as the Craftsman Truck Series' champion owners thanks to Ron Hornaday's third career championship, with this season's prize coming in KHI's No. 33 Chevrolet.

Harvick is a Bakersfield, Calif., native who launched KHI in DeLana's native Kernersville, N.C., at the end of 2001 with a runner-up finish in the Richmond Truck race. He will still run approximately 26 races in the Nationwide Series in 2008, all in his own car.

It's hard to tell if the Harvicks are more excited about their Busch program or the prospects for their Truck Series program, which will expand to two full-time teams in 2008 with the series' two three-time champions -- Hornaday and Jack Sprague.

Q: Do you feel your Truck Series championships were overdue, right on time or did you even estimate how long it would take when you put KHI together?

Kevin: Well, I don't think you really know how long it's going to take, just for the fact that we started from scratch, basically. The first shop started as a storage building for everything we had.

We built the first truck in 2001 to race at Richmond, and that was building a truck more out of ego than anything -- to go out and try to win a race. So looking back at the time it's taken, I think it's taken a fair amount of time because the sport's competitive and it's like building any other sport's franchise, and I use the term 'franchise' loosely, there.

But I think it's taken the right amount of time. I mean, Hornaday was probably ahead of where we were for sure and I think as we caught up with the team and got to his capabilities -- five years, six years [of running full time], whatever it took, was probably the right amount of time [Harvick's team ran its first full season in 2004, and Hornaday began driving for KHI in 2005].

Hopefully the seventh year is the same way.

Q: With Kevin also managing a thriving Cup Series career, how much time does each of you spend with KHI in a typical week?

Kevin: There are a lot of things that kind of co-exist at KHI, as well. It's not just the Truck teams and the Busch teams -- we still have all the Cup stuff, the [licensing] approvals and autograph stuff.

We work out together every Tuesday and Wednesday morning that we're home, at the shop. So there's a lot of things that co-exist there, that have to function. But I'd say on a given week it's probably a couple days a week that we spend there, if we're home.

DeLana: He'll go to RCR on Mondays for his [weekend recap] meeting, and usually right after lunch he's back. So I'd say we're there Monday to Wednesday for sure and if we're there on Thursday before we leave [for a Cup race] we're there. But you're right -- you don't get a break from this. You can't stop or you can't walk away from it, because if you do somebody else is one step ahead of you. (Continued)