This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Tuesday, November 20, 2007.
By
BRIAN
GOLDEN
Valley
Press
Staff
Writer
As Ron Hornaday remembers it, money never up when Kevin Harvick called to hire him to drive his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series entry.
But it came up Monday night.
Hornaday set an all-time truck series record of $1,137,044 in winnings as he was officially crowned 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion at the series' awards banquet at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Fla.
The onetime Sierra Highway homeowner added more than $422,000 to the $681,875 he won during the 25-race truck series season in capturing his third NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title.
"The party's on," exclaimed Hornaday, 49, who began his stock car racing career at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds in 1979. "My fans have been so great to me over the years.
"From Mooresville (N.C.) to Palmdale to Saugus Speedway, I want them all to celebrate with me."
Hornaday's third NCTS title came nine years after his second, and was as much personal as it was business.
After six years away from the truck series during which he replaced Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the DEI Busch Series car, Hornaday suffered through a miserable 2001 Winston Cup season with A.J. Foyt Racing and posted back-to-back Top Five Finishes in the Busch Series with Richard Childress Racing, Hornaday was without a ride for 2005.
That was when Harvick, whose truck series program began out of his garage in 2001 had by then blossomed into a gleaming 70,000-square foot headquarters building, hired his former Mesa Marin Raceway competitor to drive the Kevin Harvick, Inc. Silverado.
"Obviously, this is very personal to me," said Harvick, who got his first NASCAR truck ride and connections to RCR through Hornaday. "I slept on Ron's couch for a few months, just trying to get a break in this sport. Lindy and Ron took me into their house and basically made me part of their family.
"Ron Hornaday is the same type of person now as he was when I was sleeping on his couch. To share that moment with him on the backstretch and be the first to congratulate him, that's something I'll never forget."
Harvick finished fourth and Hornaday, as Jimmie Johnson - another onetime Hornaday couch sleeper - would do in the NASCAR Nextel Cup finale Sunday, finished seventh to take the crown by 54 points over Mike Skinner.
Hornaday and Skinner staged the most memorable NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series battle ever. They swapped the lead six times in the last nine races in a series that had far more drama than NASCAR's other two national touring series.
A tire mistakenly thought to be flat cost Skinner one lap in Friday's climactic Ford 200. An actual flat at speed inflicted enough damage to require 11 more laps in the garage.
"Mike and I talked five weeks ago that one of us would have a problem for the other one to win," Hornaday said. "His came at the wrong time. But it was the only way we were going to win.
"As tough as Skinner and their whole team were, it made us drive that much harder. It made (crew chief) Rick Ren grayer. It made our whole excel."
The addition this year of Ren was the final missing piece to the KHI championship puzzle. He consistently furnished Hornaday exactly the setups he needed, as four wins, 10 top-twos, 13 top-fives and 22 top-10s in 25 starts confirm.
"I have never had the equipment in my career that Rick Ren has given me this year at Kevin Harvick Incorporated," Hornaday said.
With another Mesa Marin legend, Rick Carelli, serving as KHI's general manager, the echoes of the team's Southern California heritage are unmistakable.
Hornaday, who was literally discovered by the late Dale Earnhardt when he watched a 1994 ESPN Winter Heat race at Tucson, gave The Intimidator's company, DEI, its first NASCAR championship.
Now KHI, a company that grown to 80 employees and four full-time race teams in two NASCAR national touring series, will also hang its first banner at the garage-majal in Kernersville, N.C., courtesy of Hornaday.
"Ron Hornaday, what can you say about him?" asked DeLana Harvick, Kevin's wife who is the official head of KHI. "To watch him battle like he has, battle Mike Skinner, they mean so much to the Truck Series.
"What's so cool for Kevin and I is that Ron has done so much for Kevin, and to be able to give back to him, that's just not a feeling you can describe."
Hornaday's win returned Chevrolet to the truck series mountaintop for the first time since 2003.
It also confirmed Hornaday's belief that his absence from victory lane from 2001-04 (two Busch Series wins in three years) said less about him than it did about his rides.
"I've never had a lull in my career," insisted Hornaday. "It's just that I never had the equipment I have over here at Kevin Harvick, Inc."
There's one other piece of Hornaday equipment that's getting a lot of attention.
That couch in his basement that hosted Harvick and then Jimmie Johnson - "We called it Camp Hornaday at Ron's house," joked Harvick - has now produced two NASCAR Nextel Cup championships, one Craftsman Truck Series championship owner, and two Daytona 500 winners.
"It's funny, it was a sectional," Hornaday said. "There was a bigger leather one, but everyone slept on that smaller one, so they didn't fall off, or something.
"I've got it in my office. I think I'm going to sleep on that couch tonight."