RICHMOND, Va. -- Maybe crew chief Gil Martin summed up the major crew swap his Richard Childress Racing operation had engineered prior to Saturday night's Crown Royal 400.

His driver, Kevin Harvick was wheeling a torn-to-pieces No. 29 Chevrolet around Richmond International Raceway late in the race when Martin keyed his in-car radio button.

“

From qualifying 40-something and ending up where we did was real good and we needed it. All the changes that happened -- to come out of here like this is a real positive for us.

”

-- CASEY MEARS

"I hate to tell you this," Martin said ruefully. "But the only cars faster than you right now are the two leaders."

At the time, that happened to be Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards, two of the sport's toughest competitors.

Or maybe it was crew chief Todd Berrier, the other half of the swap that sent him and the entire crew that had been servicing Harvick's car to the No. 07 team for Casey Mears, where Martin and his boys had placed RCR's Clint Bowyer into the Chase the last two seasons.

Berrier keyed his radio under caution at Lap 309 and calmly told Mears, "We screwed ya."

"We had to put scuffs on there, not new tires," Berrier explained. "We had a set of [new] stickers, but we didn't get 'em aired-up in time. You've been gettin' it, so just keep after it."

Maybe the sum came from the fact that the worst man in RCR's four-car ensemble on an absolutely hairy night at RIR that tied the track record for cautions with 15, was 18th- place Bowyer. He was a consistent top-20 car, but was never able to advance much farther.

In the end, after he took stock of the weekend Monday morning, Childress was pleased.

"We made changes to the crews to help those two teams but also to help RCR overall," Childress said. "There was a lot of extra work getting stuff done for Richmond and everyone pitched in to make sure it was as seamless as possible. We've also been doing some things that are creating some small gains for us on the performance side. I've been pushing everyone hard and I'm very proud of the effort they've made."

The team's current leader in the standings, Jeff Burton, was his consistent, capable self, with a fiery twist. Burrton's crew chief, Scott Miller, called for a tire stop under caution with more than 50 laps to go and Burton roared to third behind victorious birthday boy Kyle Busch.

Afterward, Burton spoke of his team but might've been summing up the can-do attitude prevalent these days at RCR.

"You can't worry about what's happening, you just got to worry about going to try to make something happen," said Burton, who advanced to seventh in the standings, one position ahead of Bowyer. "When things aren't good, you got to put your head down and go. You know, that's one thing that our team is really good at, is we're very resilient, we never quit.

“

We definitely had at least a top-10 car. I hate it for Gil and the guys, [but] on the positive side, I enjoyed working with the new crew this weekend, and I'm looking forward to Darlington.

”

-- KEVIN HARVICK

"That's kind of our trademark, is we don't have the fastest car here every week. Every now and then we might be the fastest car, but we're not normally the fastest car. We chisel finishes out. We find a way to finish sixth and eighth and ninth. That's not great, but that's our strength. We keep trying to find the speed to put with that. When we do, we'll be pretty dangerous."

No buts about it, the entire RCR group found a way to persevere Saturday, whether through tire strategy, which Burton and Miller used to surge to the front and Mears and Berrier used to engineer a ninth-place finish, Mears' first top-10 since the 2008 Homestead season finale.

Childress had good reason to be pleased. Harvick, who had struggled terribly lately, hung around the top 10 all night until he got hooked in the left rear tire by Sam Hornish Jr. at the head of the backstretch on Lap 289. By the time he got to Turn 3, the tire was going down and Harvick spun into the wall.

In terms of a race finish, his night was done, but what occurred from there -- witness Martin's remarks later -- was a revelation for what might occur later this season or even this weekend at Darlington.

"We had a good car, and really had a pretty good run going until then," Harvick said. "We were a little tight and were working on our front grip, but we definitely had at least a top-10 car. I hate it for Gil and the guys. To have someone ruin your night like that just stinks, [but] on the positive side, I enjoyed working with the new crew this weekend, and I'm looking forward to Darlington."

Martin echoed as much, predicting the team would have a shot to win this weekend's Saturday night Southern 500 as he congratulated his renewed driver on the radio.

Mears summed-up the night for them all.

"Yeah, it was a good day for us -- really what we needed," Mears said. "We started out the weekend pretty rough and I think just trying to learn what the No. 29 [Harvick's] guys did versus what the No. 07 guys did and we kind of had a trend of things that we were doing for the last couple of weeks and the No. 29 was doing something different. So I think it just took a little bit of finding out what I wanted versus what Kevin was needing with Todd.

"We had a couple miscues in the race that really held us back, but at the same time when we didn't have problems, the pit crew was amazing, the over-the-wall guys were fast and Todd made a lot of good decisions as far as getting the car better throughout the race. So it was a great day for us. From qualifying 40-something and ending up where we did was real good and we needed it. All the changes that happened -- to come out of here like this is a real positive for us."