Mears surprised, but pleased with change

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In 2006, Casey Mears finished runner-up in the Daytona 500 to Jimmie Johnson, who drove a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet that was tuned and guided that day by engineer Darian Grubb -- the man who late Monday afternoon was named Mears' crew chief on Rick Hendrick's No. 25 Chevrolet.

Mears, who has yet to run his first race for Hendrick after making 144 starts for Chip Ganassi Racing, met the man whom he expects to engineer his breakout Nextel Cup season face-to-face for the first time Thursday and said the impromptu session was "impressive."

"We talked a little bit at some of the tests, but obviously without knowing that it was going to go in this direction, so it was pretty light conversation, just little things about set-up and things like that," Mears said Thursday afternoon, smiling. "I talked to him several times over the phone since things went down [because] I was in Vegas testing, so I didn't get a whole lot of time to talk to him.

"I heard about it a couple days before it happened, but it was a fairly quick decision [and Thursday] was the first time we met each other in the garage and we sat there and talked for 45 minutes and I was almost late coming to Media Day just because we got to talking about things and getting excited about what we were getting ready to be a part of."

Mears appeared to have gotten over what he said was a surprising change.

"It all happened really fast," Mears said. "But I had talked with Jimmie about Darian for a lot of years and he expressed [how highly he thought of him]. So far I've been impressed and we've just got a lot of work to do.

"I think [Grubb's] excited about [the sponsors] and I think he's excited about the attention and effort that's been put towards this 25 team and I just couldn't be happier that he decided to come aboard.

"It was something that had to be decided quick and it was a personal decision [because] there's a lot of time devoted to this [because] he's looking to lose a lot of personal time at home so it was a huge decision for him to make and I'm glad he did -- and I'm excited about it."

But after a couple Hendrick Motorsports personnel weighed-in Thursday, it seemed outgoing crew chief Lance McGrew, who led former HMS driver Brian Vickers to the Busch Series championship in 2003 but struggled with Vickers in Nextel Cup until the pair won at Talladega last fall with the No. 25 Monte Carlo, would be the only one who might offer the definitive reason for the change.

McGrew was cited in Monday's announcement for a "leadership role" at Hendrick, which fields full-time Nextel Cup programs for defending champion Johnson, four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, former Nextel Cup rookie of the year Kyle Busch and part-time Busch Series programs for Busch, Mears and Johnson, among others. (Continued)