With a little luck, Harvick ready to defend 500 title (cont'd)

Harvick said that he feels confident about the possibility of becoming the first back-to-back Daytona 500 champion since Sterling Marlin in 1994 and 1995. But he and Berrier also both know there will be some luck involved.

"Everything just has to go your way," said Harvick, who qualified 16th for Sunday's race.

Berrier added: "Certainly there is a lot of luck involved, but for the most part we feel ready. I'm not saying we've got 'em covered by no means, but so far so good. Everything has gone pretty good. The car has been driving really good, and we're happy with the way all that's going.

"At the end of the day whatever you did in the past ain't gonna have nothing to do with anything. All that's going to matter is being in the right place at the right time. If you're within two or three rows deep, even four rows deep, and it's two-wide at the end, you're in contention to win this race. I think we were probably sixth or something when we came past the white flag last year. So anything can happen with the right help or the right push -- and it's still going to be about that."

Harvick said putting yourself in the right place at the right time starts a long time before the actual running of the race, however. It starts in the offseason, particularly for a team that won the season-opening race a year ago and then did not win another points event (although Harvick did also earn more than $1 million in prize money by winning the 2007 All-Star Challenge, a non-points event at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C.).

"We've tried to make each little piece better, from the guys working on the chassis to the engines to everything involved down to myself as the driver," Harvick said of the No. 29 team. "We're all trying to take just a little bit different of an approach heading into the year. I think we've tried to turn every stone over to make ourselves better. And I promise you, if it's not better, it's not from a lack of effort."

Last year, despite whatever transpired after, they were good enough to win the season's biggest race. The magnitude of what he had pulled off took some time to sink in with driver as well as crew chief.

"It's the most exciting race of the year for us, obviously. But to be a part of winning a Daytona 500 is something that you can't really explain to people," Harvick said. "I'm glad I got to experience that and understand why it's the biggest race in our sport. Everywhere you go after winning it, that's all anyone wants to talk about. You almost don't understand how big it is until you win one. Then it really hits you."

It finally hit home with Berrier for good that next morning, when the newspaper he picked up contained only photos and stories of the No. 29 winning and celebrating -- and nary a word about the victory being a figment of his imagination or being overturned or anything else.

"It wasn't until the next morning when I saw the paper that I was like, 'Oh, God, we made it. We did it,'" Berrier said. "And then we started thinking about [the next race at] California and that race was gone."