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NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
TRUCKS: KHI Delivers Knockout Punch
KHI won the owner championship in the Truck Series...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 21, 2009   Homestead, FL
Kevin Harvick Incorporated won both the NASCAR Camping World Series Truck Series owners championship and drivers title with Ron Hornaday. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Kevin Harvick Incorporated won both the NASCAR Camping World Series Truck Series owners championship and drivers title with Ron Hornaday. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

In its own way, Kevin Harvick Inc. has been every bit as dominant in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series this season as Hendrick Motorsports has been in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

While that’s been the case all year, the KHI squad put an exclamation point on it over the final two weeks of the series. Veteran Ron Hornaday Jr. clinched his record fourth Truck Series driver’s championship last week in Phoenix, while team co-owner Kevin Harvick won the last two races of the season in dominating fashion, as KHI sewed up the owner’s championship by 73 points over Billy Ballew’s No. 51 Toyota.

Harvick drubbed the field Friday night in the season-ending Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he led 108 of 136 laps in his Georgia Boot-sponsored Chevrolet Silverado.

“It was a great weekend for us,” said Harvick, who amassed three victories and six top-five finishes in just six Truck Series starts this season. “The truck was flawless. Really two weeks in a row it's been flawless now. We built two new trucks to try to get a head start on next year. Our main goal was to go out and after Ron had clinched the driver's championship the last two weeks to lead the most laps and win the race, and it's not very often you can go out and accomplish that. So we had a good weekend and the guys have worked hard.”

Hornaday finished a respectable eighth at Homestead after battling the flu all week. The 51-year-old veteran made winning the championship look as easy as Harvick made winning the final two races of the season. And he’s certainly appreciative of the fact that his bosses gave him the tools to win.

“It would have been really bad if we did not win that owner's championship,” said Hornaday, who earlier this season set a Truck Series record with five consecutive victories. “ This team really deserves it. Kevin and DeLana have given us the equipment to do the stuff that we do. Five wins in a row is remarkable, and that's because of (crew chief) Rick Ren and all the guys and Kevin and DeLana letting us build new trucks week in and week out. I went up there probably two months ago and I had like 11 trucks done. I went back up there two weeks ago and only had four trucks. So Kevin keeps selling my trucks and building new ones. I'm not going to complain because they're faster than anything you drive.”

From Harvick’s side, the admiration is absolutely mutual.

“I don't need to tell you guys, and you all know, but it's more of a — there's a lot of personal relationship between Ron and myself and it it's very gratifying to see him be able to win,” said Harvick. “That means as much to me as winning the races or winning the championships is to see Ron happy and winning races and winning the championship. The personal relationship is more important than, anything else.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to



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