Except for the starburst of camera flashes, the details of that damp, foggy Friday morning nine years ago at a racetrack in North Carolina have faded for Kevin Harvick. He feels as if an eternity has passed since Feb. 23, 2001, when he was introduced as Dale Earnhardt's replacement -- as if anyone could really replace stock-car racing's Intimidator. Harvick was only 25 when he walked into a crowded tent outside North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham for a news conference five days after Earnhardt was killed in a last-lap accident at the Daytona 500. Harvick recalled being shocked and a little overwhelmed by the size and intensity of the scene. He actually had to miss practice. 'That's when I knew that things were probably a little bigger than I had ever anticipated them being,' Harvick said last week in New York. 'It's been a long time. Everything has come a long way. Hopefully, we can bring everything full circle shortly.' Although the veteran car owner Richard Childress said that day that Harvick would drive a white No. 29 Chevrolet instead of Earnhardt's black No. 3 Chevrolet, Harvick was really stepping in for Earnhardt, the seven-time series champion. Harvick's car carried the same main sponsor, GM Goodwrench, as Earnhardt's. He told reporters in the tent that he had never done anything harder. Although Harvick was the 2000 Busch Series champion, he looked as if he had just graduated from high school. He won two weeks later in Atlanta in his third race, and his career gained traction. 'I don't know if anybody could have handled it any better than he did,' Tony Stewart, the 2002 and 2005 champion, said of Harvick's replacing Earnhardt. Harvick, a native of Bakersfield, Calif., has driven in 348 races for Childress. Intense in much the same way as the legend he replaced, Harvick has 14 victories, including a career-high three this year. He has finished among the top five drivers in three of his nine seasons. Even without a top-series championship, Harvick is a success. But he has also had setbacks. A year ago, he failed to make the 10-race, 12-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup -- no Richard Childress Racing driver did -- and was rumored to be leaving the team. He stayed put, but Childress, 64, who has not won a top-series championship since Earnhardt's last Cup title in 1994, restructured his organization. This year's Chase, which starts Sunday in Loudon, N.H., includes three Childress drivers: Harvick, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer. Of the three, Harvick was the most consistent, with 11 top-five finishes. He led the standings for the last 20 weeks of the 26-race regular season, but starts in third place because the points are recalculated for the Chase. Harvick said he thought he had his best chance of winning a championship since he replaced Earnhardt. Of Childress, Bowyer said, 'He's having as much fun as I've seen him have in a long time,' but having a chance is hardly the same as actually winning a championship. In 2000, his last full season, Earnhardt finished second to Bobby Labonte. No RCR driver has come that close to a championship since. Childress still has high expectations. Burton is well-aware of those. 'For us to live up to those expectations, we have to win championships,' Burton said. 'I mean, that's what Dale did. If you really think about Dale, he didn't win the most races. There were people who won as many races, and won more poles, and all of those things. Dale was about championships. 'We all think about Dale being the rough-and-tough guy; he'd knock you out of the way and all of that. But he was about winning championships. That's our guide to what RCR is about. And we haven't lived up to that.' Earnhardt would find this Chase field formidable. Jimmie Johnson has won the last four titles, and his Hendrick Racing teammate Jeff Gordon has won four more. Roush Fenway Racing has three Chase drivers, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth, the 2003 champion. Stewart has qualified for the Chase every year except 2006. No one has an edge. 'Now it seems like everyone has taken a shift into that same line,' said Denny Hamlin, who won a series-high six races, one more than Johnson. Harvick is not the only Chase driver who is motivated to atone for a lackluster 2009 season. Kyle Busch, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver who has also won three races this season, did not qualify for the Chase last year. Busch, the younger brother of the 2004 champion Kurt Busch, was excited to be in New York with his fellow drivers for a long day of interviews about the Chase. Asked what he remembered about the week leading up to the first Chase race last year, Kyle Busch said: 'I was pretty disappointed. It was pretty disheartening. I actually like this a lot more than I like sitting at home, not doing anything.' Harvick likes how fast his No. 29 Chevrolet -- now a bright yellow -- has run all season. He said his team had been preparing for most of the season for strong runs at the 10 Chase racetracks. Harvick was not as focused on Johnson or anyone else in the Chase field as he was on getting his car to perform to expectations. He races himself, he said. Last month, Harvick picked up a notable sponsor for 2011 in Budweiser, which sponsored the No. 8 Chevrolet driven by Earnhardt's son, Dale Jr., from 1999 to 2007. It would thrill a lot of Earnhardt fans for Harvick to enter the 2011 Daytona 500, 10 years after Earnhardt's death, as the defending series champion. The circle would then be complete. 