Harvick: Driver decision wasn't easy to make

Friday, September 29, 2006
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BAMBI MATTILA / NASCAR SCENE

KANSAS CITY, Kan. - Kevin Harvick says it was tough to change drivers for his Busch Series team.

Earlier this week, Kevin Harvick Inc. - the NASCAR Busch Series team co-owned by Harvick and his wife, DeLana - replaced rookie driver Burney Lamar with veteran Bobby Labonte for all but one of the remaining races this season.

Lamar is 17th in the points. He was replaced for the race at New Hampshire earlier this season when KHI put Jeff Burton in the car for one race.

"We have a lot invested in Burney over the last couple of years and felt like we were making the right decision," Harvick said. "It just didn't continue to progress in the direction it needed to progress, and the performance never got better as we went through this year and came back to the track the second time. Obviously [that's] not something that you want to do, but in the best interest of our company, it was the only thing we had left to do to understand where our cars are and where we need to go and what we need to do in the last five or six weeks here to make things better for next year."

Harvick doesn't yet know what the plan for the team next season and whether KHI will focus on one driver or hire multiple drivers.

"We're still trying to decide what we're going to do on the driving situation, whether it is two drivers or three drivers or one driver, whatever the case may be, and go from there," he said.

Mentioned Drivers: Bobby Labonte

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2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings

Driver Standings after the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500

1 Jimmie Johnson 6492
2 Mark Martin -108
3 Jeff Gordon -169
4 Kurt Busch -211
5 Tony Stewart -285
6 Juan Pablo Montoya -289
7 Greg Biffle -321
8 Denny Hamlin -352
9 Ryan Newman -411
10 Kasey Kahne -476
11 Carl Edwards -520
12 Brian Vickers -666

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