Kevin Harvick Puts Exclamation Point on NASCAR Truck Season with Win in Homestead

Kevin Harvick pulled an unusual double on the last race of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series In Homestead, Florida. He not only won the race, his car owned by Kevin Harvick Inc and driven by Ron Hornaday, captured the car owner title also. Hornaday wrapped up the NASCAR driver title for the series last week in Phoenix.

NASCAR truck owners shampionship was still on the line.
The reason Delana Harvick (owner of KHI) had not won the owners championship until this Friday night was Billy Ballew's #51 truck, driven part time by NASCAR Nationwide Champion Kyle Busch, had been locked up in a tight point battle with Harvick's #33, the truck driven by Hornaday. Kyle Busch was leading about the mid way point of the race and chose not to take tires. As they went back to green, Harvick, who had taken tires, ran Busch down quickly and passed him.

Things didn't get any better for the Las Vegas native, Busch, soon after Harvick got by him. Busch had a tire go down and was forced to pit under green. As Busch came down to change tires unexpectedly under the green flag, the crew had trouble getting the rear tire back to the pit wall, before Busch was out of the pit box. The resulting penalty put Busch down another lap and he was two laps down.

Busch started tail end of the field and was to the leaders by lap 25.
Busch qualified 8th but was forced to start tail end of the field due to an engine change. Busch roared through the field and was to the leaders by lap 25. The #33 team had entered the race with a 60 point lead on Busch and that was erased by the first caution as Busch was right on Harvick's tail. Harvick was driving the teams #4 car. After the debacle on pit road Kyle Busch wanted to park the car but his team convinced him to stay on the track.

With Busch all but out of it, Harvick made sure he locked up most laps led. Leading 108 of the 136 laps. Then with six laps to go and a caution flag out, Harvick came down to get four tires. Most drivers followed except Timothy Peters in the #17 truck. It was just a matter of a time as even Harvick would say later, " We knew the 17 truck was a sitting duck when he didn't come in."

Harvick won the last two races of the season in his #2 truck.
Harvick coming off a win in Phoenix the previous week in the #4 truck, came into the race with one goal in mind, finish the season strong. in the winner's circle after the race Harvick said, "Our goal was to go out and lead the most laps and win the race. I think everybody was concerned about their tires and there weren't very many trucks on the lead lap, so we came down for four tires."

Harvick blew by Peters and that was that. Hornaday won his fourth NASCAR truck championship in the series last week and celebrated with owners Delana and Kevin Harvick after the race. Harvick and Hornaday did dueling burnouts for the second week in a row. Harvick actually had to stop because he could no longer see where he was on the track through all the smoke.

The top five run down for the race:

1) Kevin Harvick
2) Matt Crafton
3) Colin Braun
4) Timothy Peters
5) Todd Bodine

Camping World Top 5 season ending standings:

1) Ron Hornaday
2) Matt Crafton
3) Mike Skinner
4) Todd Bodine
5) Colin Braun

source:
www.speedtv.com
Speed TV