By: Nate Ryan, USA Today
KERNERSVILLE, N.C. — The namesake of Kevin Harvick Inc. sits in on a team meeting every Monday and supervises everything related to competition. His wife oversees just about everything else.
“He and I balance each other,” DeLana Harvick says. “The racer in him says if something new comes available you’ve got to have it. But I’m the most frugal person you’ll meet.
“It’s like being married. What we do wouldn’t work for everybody. We’re together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When people say you can’t bring work home with you, that’s never going to happen for us.”
With a background in racing PR and marketing, DeLana handles much of the business, licensing and merchandising for the team and her husband’s Sprint Cup career. When they aren’t working at KHI or spending time with their three dogs, the Harvicks spend most weekends in a motor home at a racetrack.
That’s natural for DeLana, who is the daughter of former Nationwide racer John Paul Linville (her mother went into labor while he was winning a race at Caraway Speedway in Sophia, N.C.). On race days she supports her husband (and emphasizes safety) by wearing a firesuit that matches those of Richard Childress Racing’s No. 29 crew. She also created an “I wear the firesuit in this family!” T-shirt that was sold for charity at KevinHarvick.com, poking fun at a wisecrack by rival Joey Logano, who said DeLana “wears the firesuit and tells (Harvick) what to do.”
“We see (KHI) as a long-term investment for our future,” she says. “Our lives are motor sports. Kevin isn’t going to drive forever, and I don’t want him to. At some point, we’d like to have as normal lives as we could. We get a glimpse of that on an off weekend going to a friend’s T-ball game on a Saturday.”
There are no plans for children for the couple, who celebrate their 10th anniversary in February. DeLana says their company is akin to having almost 100 kids. “It’s an extended family, and I have responsibilities to them,” she says.
“We’ve talked about kids, but we’re both so involved with KHI, I’m not the kind of person to think I can do everything well,” she says. “If 10 things are my limit, the 11th thing is not going to be done well and everything is going to suffer. That’s where we are with kids. Maybe we’re just supposed to be team owners.”