DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jeff Burton was on the original Preseason Thunder Daytona Fan Fest schedule, but didn't appear. That was too bad, because he probably would've made Richard Childress Racing's support of former teammate Casey Mears unanimous.

Mears is currently on the sidelines because RCR has been unable to find sponsorship to continue his No. 07 Chevrolet's program. While Clint Bowyer said Saturday he thought RCR was more effective as a three-car team, he stressed how good a teammate Mears was, and team leader Kevin Harvick seconded that.

"I've talked to Casey quite a bit," Harvick said. "Casey is probably one of the best things that we had at RCR as far as a person. Obviously he can drive the race car, too, but he's really, really good with meshing with people and communicating with people -- and to see how he does that is pretty remarkable as to all the different teams that he adapted with.

"Everybody that comes away from knowing Casey and getting to work with him is like, 'Man, that's the best guy in the world.' So it's just kind of like the nicest guy in the world is the guy that gets cancer or the guy that dies before the guy that's a complete creep."

Harvick is taking a wait-and-see attitude before deciding what his Cup future holds, but he hopes Mears gets something going for this season after RCR initially said it would field the 07 at Daytona, where it would have been a guaranteed starter, but has since said it wouldn't enter the car in the Daytona 500.

"I feel bad for Casey and it might be something hopefully, if it all works out, maybe he can keep going," Harvick said. "I hope he gets something, because he's a really good person, and it's just unfortunate with how it all worked out."

Gordon supports Frances, NASCAR

Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon was asked about the France family, who formed NASCAR in the late 1940s and later, opened Daytona International Speedway in 1959 and Talladega Superspeedway in 1969.

"When you hear a lot of the stories that went on in the decision-making," Gordon said, "it makes you think, 'Wow, these guys were pretty genius, and they were very brave to put themselves out there like that, to build a speedway like this and have the vision for not only here at Daytona, but for the sport in general to be able to grow and move on beyond dirt-track races in the Southeast and be as big as it has become.' (Continued)