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.

• Complete story, click here

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.

Kevin: They say it takes you a week to catch up, and if you miss a week it takes you a month to catch up.

DeLana: And that's not a joke. Honestly we're so fortunate to have people in place that [Kevin] can go focus on his Cup car and his Busch stuff and not worry about it -- we have such good people in place, and that's taken time.

We've made some mistakes, and we've learned and that's the hardest part of doing this, is that your head has to rule your heart.

Kevin: It's not always fun.

DeLana: It's not always fun, and some of the decisions we've had to make have not been fun, and not been what I wanted to do, but that's a big thing that I've learned over the last couple of years.

We were just two kids that wanted to have a race team. We didn't realize that it came with everything else -- so we have made mistakes, but we realize that with the Truck team and the Busch team that if we did make mistakes, it wouldn't be as huge as if we were in the Cup Series.

A lot of people ask us all the time, 'When are you going to go Cup racing?' We don't want to go Cup racing. That's not what we want to do. We're having a good time, we enjoy what we're doing. And if it's not fun -- and we always preach this to our guys: If you're not having fun, don't do it. If you don't want to come to work every day, if it's too hard, don't come to work -- go do something else. And we haven't gotten to that point yet, where we want to do anything else. We know we don't want to Cup race -- it's just too hard and we want to have somewhat of a normal life.

Kevin: For now.

DeLana: For now. We've never been people to have a plan in place where, 'in five years we're going to be here,' so it's really odd how all these things worked out. Like Kevin said, we started the Truck team because he'd never won a Truck race. So we go out in our first race and we almost win -- and that's fueled us.

We lost to Sprague at Richmond. And then we ended up getting a full-time sponsor, so we started running the truck full time. Then Tony Stewart came to us and said, 'I want to run some Busch races.' And that's how our Busch program got started [with two races in 2004], so it was never just a sincere plan that we had, it was just a little bit fly by the seat of your pants, which was completely how [Kevin] operates -- but completely not how I operate. So it's been a little mesh of the two.

Q: If you thought 2007 was never a dull moment, how do you see Hornaday and Sprague racing on the same team next season?

Kevin: There's a lot that's going to change next year, in our company, and [getting Sprague] is one big piece. We built the 2 truck this year to go out and help the 33 race for a championship, and myself and Clint Bowyer and Cale Gale drove that truck. That truck, in the beginning of the year, was specifically for R&D purposes so I could go out and evaluate the team -- just so we had more resources to go out and [compete]. We cut the body off that 2 truck three weeks in a row -- three races in a row -- and brought it back to the racetrack.

But it helped escalate the 33 team and helped them evolve through the motions a lot faster. So having Ron and Jack next year will be what we're all about. They both really drive hard. Every once in a while, things get tore up, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Off the racetrack they're really good friends and respect each other. Hornaday was kind of the one who pushed that deal to make it happen so I think they'll help drive each other to make each other better.

Q: Will you do a third truck to get you in the seat for any races, or to do any additional R&D work?

Kevin: The plan right now is to just have the two full-time trucks and then myself and Cale Gale will split the 33 [Nationwide Series] car, for a full season. We're going to run [Gale] part time in the 77 [Nationwide Series] car I think six or eight races, and that will be it. We're focusing on those four drivers: myself and Cale, and Ron and Jack, and that's it.

The Busch program is about halfway to where the Truck program is right now, so we're just trying to speed that process up and me being able to focus on just the 33 car next year and not the 33, the 77 and the [RCR's] 21 [will be better]. That took a little bit away from what we've done this year. We still had a great season in the Busch Series, sixth in owner points with the 33 and 15th with the 77, but you always think it can be better.

Q: To look out the back of the current shop at the original structures is a pretty neat contrast in how far KHI has come, so who would each of you say is the biggest influence in getting you to this point?

Kevin: I think the biggest influence is just the way DeLana grew up and the way I grew up. She saw her dad [former Late Model Sportsman and Busch Grand National owner / driver John Paul Linville] struggle with not the right equipment. We [Harvick and his father, Mike Harvick] had some of the right parts and pieces but we never had the money to appropriately race as I was growing up, and really do it 100 percent right week in and week out.

So when we got the opportunity to do that, I think that was probably the biggest influence. One of the biggest influences behind being able to do what we do is to run race teams and run 'em right -- to be able to go out and compete. But this [Truck championship] is a little bit different probably than anything else because it is Hornaday and he kinda stepped out and said he wanted to drive for us. We've been friends for a long time, so that makes it a little bit different.

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.