RCR adjusts to crew swap for Harvick and Mears (cont'd)

Mears should be used to change. He's driving for his third organization in four years, and this will be his seventh crew chief in a Cup driving career that is in the early stages of only its seventh season.

For Harvick, change may not come as easily. Berrier has been his crew chief since 2003, and they won the Daytona 500 together in 2007. They also have made each of the last three Chases together.

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If you look at where we are in the points right now, and where the 29 is at in the points right now, the [organization] really felt like they needed to do something to shake it up a little bit. And this might just be that spark.

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-- CASEY MEARS

"I know Todd is one my best friends in the world, and that's the part I've had the most trouble coping with," Harvick admitted.

Harvick tried to be diplomatic about Childress' decision to order the switch.

"When you own the company, you've got to make some decisions that you think are right for your company," he said. "Richard feels strongly about it. And I think everybody's got some enthusiasm about it, so I think that's a good thing."

"I think Gil does a good job. Everybody does a good job. There are just a lot of things everybody is working on."

Asked why he thought his No. 29 Chevy team has struggled this season under Berrier, Harvick added: "It all depends on how you look at struggling. We came out and won the Shootout and finished second in the [Daytona] 500, and ran great at Atlanta and Las Vegas. Really, the last three weeks hasn't been that good. But I think you just have to work on those things and you're going to go through peaks and valleys. But just the last three weeks is all that had been really bad."

Still, Childress didn't like what he had been seeing lately out of both teams. He said he considered making the change as early as for the Bristol race prior to March 22, but decided to give it more time because he figured the next four races on the schedule -- at Bristol, Texas, Martinsville and Phoenix -- were normally where RCR teams gained some of their best results.

When those teams struggled at those tracks as well, that sealed the deal in the owner's mind.

"We owe it to our sponsors and our fans to run better than we are, and I felt these were the two teams that were the weakest," Childress said. "They're both great race teams, and we should be running better."

The other RCR teams -- the No. 33 driven by Clint Bowyer and the No. 31 driven by Jeff Burton -- have clearly performed better. Although no RCR car has won a race this season, Bowyer was sixth in points entering Sunday's race at Talladega and Burton was 11th.

Mears said he had no problem with not being included in the decision-making process before the swap was announced.

"It was a team decision. I can't fault anybody for making a change," Mears said. "If you look at where we are in the points right now, and where the 29 is at in the points right now, the [organization] really felt like they needed to do something to shake it up a little bit. And this might just be that spark.

"I wasn't really involved in the decision process, it was more like, 'This is what we're going to do.' But I'm good with it. We're going to race hard this weekend and hopefully finish with these guys with a bang -- well, not a bang, but with a good finish and a win. And then we'll go on to next week."

Childress said that he is optimistic the change will produce fairly immediate positive results.

"You know sometimes it's kind of like a divorce," he said. "When a man and woman are getting a divorce, they think they're both giving 100 percent. Then the first thing she wants to do [afterward] is get in the tanning bed and lose 30 pounds. He goes and gets rid of his gut and gets a sports car.

"Maybe the change is just what we need. It's always worked for us in the past when we've made similar changes, and hopefully this time it will work, too."