Hearing from several sources that Kevin Harvick Inc. will either only run one truck or not participate at all in the Camping World Truck Series in 2012. Rumor has it that the #33 team will be shut down and Ron Hornaday has been told to find a new ride for next season.(8-26-2011)
UPDATE: Earlier today a team representative responded to the report regarding KHI’s 2012 plans; “I can tell you the landscape will look different, but what that is and what our 2012 plans are is not yet confirmed.”Kevin Harvick was asked again during a media interview at Bristol Motor Speedway; his response; “I have no idea. It will not look the same. There will be some major changes, but nothing has changed since Wednesday.”(Team Chevy Racing PR)(8-26-2011)
UPDATE 2 Harvick Q&A transcript excerpts from Richmond:
Q: WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF MERGING THE KHI NATIONWIDE PROGRAM WITH RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR THE TRUCK PROGRAM AND WHAT KINDS OF FACTORS ARE YOU CONSIDERING IN MAKING A DECISION?
Harvick: “There is nothing to announce today, but, the one thing I can tell you is there will be no trucks that run out of KHI. But, as far as what happens with the truck teams, that will come in the weeks to come.”
Q: IF AN ORGANIZATION LIKE KHI CAN’T MAKE IT IN TRUCKS, WHAT DOES THAT SAY FOR THE SERIES?
Harvick: “I think when you look at the expectations that we put on the company to race, it obviously us, RCR, costs us more to race the vehicles than probably some of the other people with no overhead. The Truck Series is a great series. It is a lot of fun. I would love to continue driving some races in the truck series as we move forward. It’s just a point where we felt like we needed to some decisions from a business standpoint and these are the decisions that DeLana and I made and Fred (Lekse), Josh (Jones) and everybody involved has done a great job of taking the best of both worlds and making them work. There was no financial issues; we were making it all work. But, sometimes you just feel like you have got to get something out of it. We were winning races and loved to be a part of that; but, in the end it’s business.” Q: YOU SAY THIS IS A BUSINESS DECISION. BUT IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO IT, I’M SURE IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR YOU PERSONALLY AND EMOTIONALLY IF THE RIGHT THING OR THE WRONG THING. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THAT WEIGHED ON YOU IN THE EARLY STAGES SINCE IT WAS YOUR BABY AND PROBABLY HARD TO LET GO.
Harvick: “Well, we still wanted to be involved and that was the hard part to figure out was how do we still be involved in it to the point of having an opinion on things. So we worked through a lot of that. There’s just a tremendous amount of moving pieces and just to get the ball rolling, that first conversation, was awkward. But you know, it really hasn’t been as taxing or as crazy mentally of a decision as you would think it would be; just for the fact that you see all these positive that have bloomed out of all the conversations and all the reactions have just been crazy as far as the way the rumors have spun out of control. DeLana and I have just kind of sat back and laughed at a lot of them. But I feel like as a couple, and as a group at KHI, we’ve made a lot of good business decisions over the course of the years. And it’s going to allow us time to explore other business opportunities as well. There were a lot of moments that you look back on, and there really weren’t any bad moments or moments that were just gut-wrenching that you had to go through, it was a relatively easy process.”
Q: COULD YOU CLARIFY WHAT IS KHI AFTER THIS SEASON? YOU’VE GOT CHASSIS-BUILDING STUFF. WHAT’S GOING TO BE IN THAT SHOP?
Harvick: “As we’ve gone through the months, that’s a lot of the things that you haven’t seen. The customer stuff has basically been shut off for several months as the process has kind of been starting to be put in place. The manufacturing side has been shut down for a month now; so there have been a lot of things that have started to progress and take part as we’ve led up into these moments of today. Kevin Harvick Inc. will basically become the No. 2 and the No. 33 cars, we’ll still have an interest in the decisions and the things that happen at RCR. It’s just going to operate under that particular roof.
Q: YOU SAID THIS WILL ALLOW YOU TO FOCUS ON YOUR CUP RACING AND YOU ALMOST WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR. WHAT MORE CAN YOU DO, OR WHAT HAS THIS KEPT YOU FROM DOING AND HOW IS THIS GOING TO MAKE YOU BETTER GOING INTO THIS CHASE AND NEXT YEAR AND BEYOND?
Harvick: “With the Nationwide stuff, and obviously the Truck stuff that RCR already has with Austin (Dillon) and what will be Ty (Dillon) and (Joey) Coulter, it just allows you to be at one facility. There were still 140 people that worked at the shop so you still had to worry about the sponsor issues and you still had to worry about all the things that come with the team ownership side. I think that most of that we’ll help with; but in the end, it’s going to be the responsibility of the guys at RCR to go out and get new sponsors and things. They don’t have to get many on the Nationwide side, aside from the ones we already have.”
Q:YOU SAID 140 EMPLOYEES DO MOST OF THEM KEEP THEIR JOBS, OR HOW DOES THAT WORK? I KNOW YOU GUYS SPENT A LOT OF MONEY REFURBISHING THAT SHOP LAST FALL ARE YOU GOING TO SELL ALL THE EQUIPMENT OR WHAT HAPPENS THERE?
Harvick: “There is really no reason for us to keep the equipment. Richard has everything that he needs and once we get to the point of him having everything that he needs to operate the way that he wants to operate next year, and then we will move on with everything and get rid of it. As we go through the process through the end of the year obviously, there will be a number of jobs that come available at RCR (Richard Childress Racing) and they will all have the opportunity to go about those jobs. Hopefully, with the situation that we have put the truck teams in going forward, it will gives a number of jobs available too. Our goal right now is to get as many people in a solid position as we can going forward. That is really why we did this so early was to make sure everyone had a great opportunity to fit in with the new situations and make sure they had time to do what they needed to do.”(Team Chevy Racing PR)(9-9-2011)
