Lamar to Drive Dollar General Chevrolet for Harvick in NBS

NOVEMBER 4, 2005 - Burney Lamar will drive the No. 77 Dollar General Chevrolet in all 35 events on the Busch Series schedule in 2006 for Kevin Harvick Inc. Lamar will compete for Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors in his first full season in the Busch Series.

Kevin Harvick

KEVIN HARVICK, CAR OWNER, No. 77 DOLLAR GENERAL CHEVROLET: “We started KHI in 2003 as pretty much a hobby. We started racing trucks pretty much for the fact that I hadn’t won a truck race and really wanted to win a truck race and we were able to accomplish that feat. And that rolled into a full-time truck program with GM Goodwrench and we’ve raced the trucks for a couple of years full-time and we’re on our fourth year now. We started the Busch team last year. Tony and Kid Rock wanted to run a race and it’s evolved into a full-time program this year. We set a goal at the beginning of the year to win a race and finish in the top-10 in owner’s points and so far so good. We’re real excited about where everything is headed in the direction of KHI. Today we’re going to announce a second full-time team. Burney Lamar will be the driver of the Dollar General Chevrolet. We couldn’t be more excited to have Dollar General and Burney as part of KHI. I know on the Dollar General side, we’re they’re only major sports sponsorship in the history of the company and a company that has nearly 8,000 stores and 60,000 employees, that’s a pretty tall order to represent a company of that magnitude. I think we’re up to the task. We’re looking forward to running for a driver’s championship with Burney. He’s done a great job this year with our development program that we’ve put him through in the West series and he’s run full-time in the Southwest series and run a couple of truck races and a Busch race here and there. I’m really proud of everything that we’ve done. Myself and Tony Stewart will be involved. I will run two races [and] Tony will run two races with the Dollar General sponsorship. Tony will run 10 races total next year and I’ll run a total of four for the 33 KHI car. Burney’s car will be the No. 77 so we will have the 77 and the 33 full-time in both cars next year. Along with that we’ll have a full-time truck again with Ron Hornaday next year so we’re excited. On my side, I know growing up with not a whole lot and being able to have everything that we have now, it’s pretty exciting for us. I’d like to introduce Rick McNeely from Dollar General.”

RICK MCNEELY, VICE PRESIDENT OF MERCHANDISING, DOLLAR GENERAL: “Thank you, Kevin. On behalf of the 60,000 Dollar General employees and millions of Dollar General customers, we’re thrilled to announce this partnership with Kevin Harvick Incorporated. 2005 marked our first year as a NASCAR sponsor with the Busch team. That’s the first sponsorship in the 65-year history of the company. In the middle of the year we decided that we needed to make a change for 2006. We have performed an extensive search throughout the NASCAR garage. We’ve talked with many teams, we’ve looked with many programs, we looked at many ideas. We kept coming back to Kevin Harvick Incorporated. We were impressed with the organization that Kevin and DeLana have put together. We’re happy to have Kevin’s involvement, but we’re really happy to have DeLana involved and we look forward to working with you. I think one of the things that impressed us most about Kevin Harvick Incorporated was Kevin’s commitment to winning and the competitor that he is, he’s won on every level of the sport: trucks, the Busch Series, the Cup series. He’s a real competitor and he doesn’t like to lose and he knows how to win and that was one of the driving factors in our decision. Kevin has a passion on the racetrack and he’s taken that to the organization. The facility in Kernersville is state of the art. We know they are going to field quality equipment and Kevin’s got a great team around him. We’re happy with Burney. We couldn’t be more thrilled with a young, up and coming driver that we think will be the 2006 Raybestos Rookie of the Year. I don’t want to put a jinx on that [smiles]. We can’t wait for Daytona. This is our Dollar General triple threat, which is Burney Lamar, Tony Stewart, and Kevin Harvick. Thank you.”

TONY STEWART, No. 33 DOLLAR GENERAL CHEVROLET: “I’m excited. Obviously, Kevin and DeLana gave me a great opportunity to win my first Busch race at Daytona, which is definitely one of the biggest wins of my career. Obviously, with being in the Cup series as long as I’ve been here, people don’t understand why it was such a big win. At the beginning of the year this year, I figured out that I had ran in 22 different divisions in my career and there were only two series that hadn’t won a race in yet: one was the Busch Series and one was in Grand Am sports car series, which I still haven’t won in. Being able to win the Busch race at Daytona was huge for us and that was something due to Kevin and DeLana and them having the faith in me to come over on the Busch side and run for them and letting me kind of hand pick some of the races that I wanted to run was something that not a lot of car owners will give you that flexibility. I was very grateful for that. Obviously the two races that I run for Dollar General this year we’re going to be extremely excited about. They’re a great company, have a great passion for this sport, and great dedication to this sport. I’m definitely looking forward to it. I agree with what you said, it’s nice working with Kevin, but it’s 10 times nicer to work with DeLana because she actually is the boss of the organization. She’s definitely the best-looking car owner I’ve ever had in my career. It definitely makes this program a lot more fun because of her.”

BURNEY LAMAR, No. 77 DOLLAR GENERAL CHEVROLET: “I didn’t really write anything [smiles]. I’ve just got to say that I’m really excited to be a part of the Busch Series. It’s a dream come true, really. To grow up racing and watching everybody in the Busch series and the Cup series and you get an opportunity to do it and to drive for Kevin and DeLana and to represent a Fortune 500 company like Dollar General is just an honor. It really has been a dream come true.”

HARVICK: “I think this year we’ve done pretty well. Obviously we have some support from RCR and we can walk over and ask some questions if we need to and obviously our engine program comes from RCR. I think in our first full year, I think we’ve accomplished everything that we’ve set out to accomplish. Through the middle part of the year, we crashed a few cars and got a little bit behind but for the most part adding the second team is definitely not going to hurt anything. It’s going to bring more cars, it’s going to bring more opinions, it’s going to bring everything to another level. I definitely think the second team is going to move us forward another step.”

LAMAR: “It’s actually been a real fast learning curve. The biggest thing for me was everything that I’ve raced before was on a bias-ply tire and then going to radial tire is a lot different. You can definitely get it into the corner a lot harder, get them off a lot harder, but they are a lot less forgiving. The races that I had run, it was a real fast learning curve. It’s been a good experience. We run the two or three truck races now and I think we would have had a lot better finishes just due to circumstances beyond our control. We didn’t have the finishes that we wanted. It was a good learning experience.”

HARVICK: “We’re going to move the points, take a little bit of the pressure off of Burney and put it on myself and Tony again next year, for the first five races in the 33 car. I think I just told Tony that [laughter]. No pressure on us, so we’ll share it amongst each other. Right now, we know that the truck team is going to be in the Busch Series next year. I’m pretty sure that that team will be this team on the 77 car. Right now that’s where we’re headed. We’ll find a replacement for Wally with the truck team and Ron Hornaday.”