Catchfence

Loudon, NH - With a strong runner-up finish in the Heluva Good! 200, Ron Hornaday, No. 33 Copart Silverado, sits atop the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series point standings holding a 217-point margin over second with just six races remaining in the season.

In his quest for an unprecedented fourth NCWTS championship, Hornaday battled the last one-third of the 200-lap race with his Kevin Harvick, Inc. teammate and boss, Kevin Harvick, No. 2 Dupli-Color Silverado, who finished in third place.

Matt Crafton, who sits second in the standings behind Hornaday, brought his No. 88 Sylvania/Menards Silverado to the finish in fourth place. He was followed by his teammate, Johnny Sauter in the No. 13 Fun Sand/Rodney Atkins/Curb Records Silverado in the fifth postion.

Kyle Busch (Toyota) won the race.

The next event for the NCWTS will be on September 26 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 2 DUPLI-COLOR SILVERADO, FINISHED 3RD: TALK ABOUT THE STRATEGY AND THOUGHT PROCESS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAMMATE AS THE LAPS WERE WINDING DOWN: “Well, there was no thought process obviously. If you are going to have team work, you have got to have a two-way street. So, it is something that we’ll address when we get to the shop. I feel like we had the best two trucks. The Dupli-Color Chevrolet was good and just poor communication between Rick Carelli (spotter) and (Ron) Hornaday and Rick Ren. And I felt like we gave it away.”

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND RON HORNADAY IN THE FINAL LAPS? “I don’t think anything happened, I just think it was poor communication from a crew chief and a spotter to not give the race away. I didn’t want to get loose up underneath Ron (Hornaday) and have something happen. You’ve gotta use your head and we gave one away.”

RON HORNADAY, NO. 33 COPART SILVERADO, FINISHED 2ND: YOUR TEAM OWNER AND TEAMMATE, KEVIN HARVICK, FELT LIKE THERE WAS SOME MISCOMMUNICATION THERE AT THE END, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

“He got up to me three or four times and I backed off and he run underneath me. I didn’t know if he was getting loose or whatever underneath me. Darn, I had older tires and I knew he had fresher tires. I’ll take second. That is all I can do.

“I was just tight in the center in one or two. In three and four, I was really good. It was a good run for the Copart Chevrolet. We’ll take that. I don’t know what I did wrong, I have to find out.”

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FINAL LAPS?

“We just got racing together. I let him get a good run going into three and I didn’t know if he got loose getting in so I guess I pinched him down a little — I don’t know. A good run after all for the Copart Chevrolet. KHI (Kevin Harvick Incorporated) gave that one to Kyle (Busch). I don’t know if Kyle (Busch) had enough fuel to finish or not, but we had a good eight gallons in ours, so we did. It was still a good day.”

WAS THERE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE TWO KHI TEAMS IN THE FINAL LAPS?

“No communication, just racing.”

MATT CRAFTON, NO. 88 SYLVANIA/MENARDS SILVERADO, FINISHED 4TH: TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY TODAY:

“It was eventful. We just never gave up. On the first run, we were really really tight. The second run, we made a lot of progress with it. On the first run, got that left front fender killed really really early. It is aggravating. But got fourth place. We lost some points (to leader, Hornaday) but at least we got away from the guy behind us some more. It is all good.”

HOW WAS YOUR RUN AT NEW HAMPSHIRE?

“The truck was just too tight. It would fire off and it would be really lose in and then we just had a tight spot right in the middle. We never could get rid of that and it wouldn’t roll the middle like we did. These guys never give up. I can’t thank these guys enough on this Menard/Sylvania truck. It was good, but it wasn’t good enough. Track position was everything today. Like I said, I can’t thank these guys enough — they never give up. We suffered a little bit of left-front fender damage on lap four and I think that didn’t help us.”

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 2 DUPLI-COLOR SILVERADO, FINISHED 3RD: CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR RACE?:

“We had a good day. The truck was really fast and we were able to do what we needed to do with pit strategy. Just came down to some circumstances. I felt like we probably had the best truck and wound up with neither truck winning the race. A little frustrated with that, but all in all, it was a good day.”

WERE YOU AWARE THAT KYLE BUSCH WOULD HAVE RUN OUT OF FUEL IF IT STAYED GREEN THE WHOLE WAY? CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RACING RON HORNADAY AT THE END OF THE RACE?:

“I just feel like the communication between the spotter and the crew chief wasn’t relayed to the driver very clear. I felt like one of the two trucks should have won the race. I felt like we were a little bit better truck and you can’t put yourself in a position to do something underneath him that would be detrimental to his championship chase. Just some things internally that we probably need to work on there and we finished second and third today. It’s still a good day — a good day for them in the championship race, but still feel like we didn’t do what we needed to do.”

IS THE LACK OF COMMUNICATION WITH RON HORNADAY JUST FROM A LACK OF RACING TOGETHER MUCH AT THIS LEVEL?:

“No, I made it very clear on the radio what I expected and obviously it didn’t come from the pit box or the top. It’s not anything to do with Ron (Hornaday), it’s just a little bit frustrating from an internal standpoint. I’ll fix that.”

RON HORNADAY, NO. 33 COPART SILVERADO, FINISHED 2ND: CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR RACE TODAY?:

“It was a good day until after the race I guess. I didn’t know, I thought I was better than Kevin (Harvick) for a while and then he had newer tires. No communication whatsoever. I gave him the bottom two or three times, but I guess he was loose enough to where he couldn’t go low. I just ran it as hard as I could. The 51 (Kyle Busch ) and us had the oldest tires out there and we were just hanging on the best we can. To come home second with our Copart Chevrolet — it was a good day.”

WERE YOU THINKING THAT KEVIN HARVICK WAS GOING TO BE ABLE TO PASS YOU ON THE BOTTOM?:

“Basically, he had fresher tires, you know. We probably had 60-lap more on our tires. I thought he was just back there, he would get a run and he would fall back four or five spots and then he would get a good run again. He pushed me a couple times down the straight away and I thought maybe he was just playing around and having fun. Just hard racing I guess, I don’t know. I have to still talk to him so we’ll see.”

DO YOU HAVE A ‘RIDE FOR LIFE’ AT KEVIN HARVICK INCORPORATED?:

“No, no — I have a job, but I don’t get paid. She (Delana Harvick) rephrased that the following week. Delana (Harvick) says, ‘You have a job as long as Ron (Hornaday) wants a job there.’ Then she came back the following week and says, ‘But, I don’t have to pay him.’

DOES KEVIN HARVICK’S FRUSTRATION ABOUT THIS SEEM STRANGE?:

“Kevin’s (Harvick) a racer. He’s a racer and he wants to win too. KHI (Kevin Harvick Incorporated) gave a win away. We were supposed to count down five seconds when we went to pit and he didn’t start counting for the first 10 seconds and all of the sudden he said, ‘Five,’ and I have to go. I think we took a little too much gas and Kyle (Busch) beat us out of the pits. That’s basically what gave the win away right there is our pits and staying in there too long.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE BUMP FROM KEVIN HARVICK UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG?:

“I thought he was saying hi, I don’t know. It’s the first time he’s done it to me so we’ll find out. He did in the Nationwide car with me and we were having fun. Them guys work just as hard and they took a week off from the Nationwide to come up here with Ernie Cope (Harvick crew chief) and they wanted to win and we probably gave it away by racing him as hard as I did. We have to race that 88 (Matt Crafton) and the 5 (Mike Skinner) for the championship and we had to run as hard as we could. I don’t know — we’ll talk. I’m sure the Monday morning meeting is going to be real pleasant.”

HAVE RECENT RACING EVENTS WITH ‘TEAM ORDERS’ BEEN ON YOUR MIND?: “No, not at all. We talk about it to see which one is faster or not, but if we’re going to do that then we need to get all our spotters together and all that stuff and race as a team, which we are a team. We have all the same trucks, the same set-up and everything else — we just race hard.”

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- GM Racing Communications Press Release