1on1: Casey Mears

Casey Mears has won only one Sprint Cup race in his career, which began in 2003 with Chip Ganassi Racing. That came in 2007 when Mears captured the Coca-Cola 600 while driving the No. 25 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

But Mears long ago caught the eye of team owner Richard Childress, who remembers Mears challenging for a victory during a race at Michigan not long after embarking on his career. Childress happened to be watching the race that day with Roger Mears, Casey's father who drove in two Indianapolis 500 races and was an off-road racing legend.

Bloodlines

• Casey is the nephew of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears and he son of Roger Mears, who ran in the Indy 500 twice and is an off-road racing legend.

• Casey was the second-youngest driver in USAC history to win a feature race when he did it at age 16.

• Casey began racing BMX bicycles at age 4.

• Casey's home once was featured on an episode of MTV Cribs.

"I've watched Casey's career from the time when he first came in," Childress said. "He's always impressed me. Standing up there and watching the race with your dad, you almost won the race one day up there in Michigan -- and I think I was pulling for you about as hard as I was for our cars."

Soon Mears will be in one of the Richard Childress Racing cars. He was announced as RCR's fourth driver last Saturday at Bristol, and will take over the No. 07 Chevy currently being driven by Clint Bowyer at the beginning of next season. Bowyer will move to a new car being fielded by RCR, the No. 33.

NASCAR.COM caught up with Mears and asked him about his pending new gig.

Q: How excited are you to be with RCR, and what's going to happen next?

Mears: Right now as far as Richard has said, there are still a lot of details to be worked out like as far as who's going to be in the crew and what's going to happen behind the scenes. But now that we've gotten to this point, we can go back and really evaluate all that and start figuring out exactly who is going to be with who, which crew chiefs are going to be available, what team members are going to go where. I'm looking forward to sorting a lot of that out in the next few weeks. Obviously from the RCR standpoint, they've got a lot of things to focus on right now as far as trying to get [their current three teams] in the Chase. Hopefully once they get in there and the dust settles on all that, we can start focusing on the other details.

Q: How do you think you'll blend in at RCR?

Mears: I'm really excited about it. The little bit that I've been able to go up there and tour the shop, obviously RCR has all the equipment to be a championship-contending team. With the success they've had last year and they're having again this year, it's obvious that all tools are there, the parts and pieces are there. From what I can see and from already knowing [RCR drivers] Jeff [Burton], Clint [Bowyer] and Kevin [Harvick], I think we're going to get along just fine.

I'm a big team player. That's how I like to race, that's what I like to do. I've seen a lot of success that they've had in the past working that way and I've had success with other teams working that way. I'm really looking forward to getting there, working with these guys and seeing what they've learned, and just being a part of it. So I think it's going be a good match for everybody. From the outside looking in, it really feels like it's going be a good fit.

Q: Talk about why you want to drive for Richard Childress ...

Mears: Obviously with knowing Richard over the years, and the little bit that we've talked from here and there, he's the type of guy I want to race for. I'm just ready to get started. Obviously we've got a lot to remain focused on for the remainder of this season. I'm obviously going to focus hard on that. But as soon as this season is over, I'm going to get started on this direction. I look forward to getting started with it.

Mears to RCR

Owner points, new crews -- as Richard Childress announced Casey Mears as his new driver it opened up more questions about the RCR stable.

• Complete story, click here
• Mears signs with RCR
• Video: Ready for new team
• Video: Leaving Hendrick tough

Q: Why did you wind up in the Jack Daniel's car?

Mears: I honestly don't know why exactly things worked out the way they did. I just know that they did because it was the best scenario for RCR. I don't know what exactly happened behind the scenes. I'm more than happy; I'm very happy to be in the Jack Daniel's car. And however it happened, it doesn't really matter to me so long as I'm in the car.

Q: When did all this start to come together?

Mears: I pretty much was talking with everybody a week or two after I found out what was going on at Hendrick Motorsports [and that Mark Martin would be replacing him in the No. 5 at the start of next season]. We had a lot of good conversations. Some things looked really good at one point; then they didn't look so good at some other points. Fortunately, it was all able to be worked out with RCR.

Q: You've seen the shops of several top teams throughout your career and through this process of figuring out where you were going to end up next season. How does the RCR shop in Welcome, N.C., stack up with some of the others?

Mears: They've got an unbelievable facility. I think a lot of people don't realize because of their location, because they haven't had the opportunity to see it, but their facilities and the tools and parts and pieces that they have are awesome. I mean, you heard it from Jeff Burton when he signed up over there, how impressed he was with all of the stuff they have. And it's all there. It's up to us to work hard together. We want to make the Chase next year, and we want to go for the championship. And we have all the equipment to do that.

Q: Beginning with the switch next season, you will have been with six crew chiefs in five different cars and three different organizations in the last five years. How difficult has that been and are you looking at this as a chance to gain some stability?

Mears: First things first, and the first thing is that we have to get through this year and then get things set for next year. But it definitely has been difficult. I think going from crew chief to crew chief, car to car, sponsor to sponsor, team to team, it's a big adjustment every year. That's one big key that Richard already has talked a little bit about, and that's having us hopefully doing a lot of preseason testing and hopefully getting up to speed as quickly as possible. Get on the same page as fast as we can to hopefully get the season off to the right start.

Q: Why hasn't it worked out for you at Hendrick?

Mears: If you look at the way things worked out at Hendrick, we got about halfway through last year and really started coming on. We started building cars the same as the other three [teams there], and started getting things sorted out, and really started coming on. Then we had the big change right at the start of the year [in crew chiefs and other personnel]. [Current No. 5 crew chief] Alan [Gustafson] is a great guy and I really enjoy working with him, but for some reason or another we've had a hard time seeing eye-to-eye on the track. At times we hit it and we're real good; at times we miss it and we miss it really bad. For some reason there has been some miscommunication there. I think all the parts and pieces are there. I think the people are there [at both Hendrick and RCR]. I think the biggest thing at RCR is that they obviously want to win championships and they're very serious about the sport, but it seems like it's got a little bit more of a laid-back feel. I think I'm going to be able to slide in there and fit in very well.

Q: Will you have a say in who your new crew chief may be?

Mears: There are going to be a lot of conversations about that here in the next few weeks, trying to sort out the details.

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