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.'

"It's pretty incredible. I'm certainly thankful for that vision. And not only the vision -- you can have a vision but not be able to execute it. They've done a great job visualizing it as well as executing it and turned it into an incredible sport.

"I say this all the time at different events that I do. I've been racing cars for a long time, but never until I got into NASCAR did I ever see 50-plus thousand people in the grandstands. I had gone to the Indianapolis 500 before and saw the hundreds and thousands there, but no other race did I ever go to or compete in where you see the mass of people following the sport as avidly as our fans do or have a race track that packed them in like we do every single weekend.

"That is completely due to the France family, and what NASCAR has done and stock-car racing, and how our fans follow it and have attached themselves to it, and that's pretty amazing."

Bowyer: Hendrick rules?

Listening to Clint Bowyer, you got the impression he felt like Hendrick Motorsports, which won its fourth consecutive championship last season and had, if you count Hendrick customers Stewart-Haas Racing as a satellite team, six cars in the Chase, had a definite edge on the competition.

Counting four-time champion Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon and Stewart-Haas' Tony Stewart, the group won nearly half the races -- 17 of 36 -- last season.

"There's no question there was an organization that dominated last season," Bowyer said. "They were on it better than everybody else, they had figured it out. I mean, face it. If you weren't driving one of their chassis, you were going to get beat.

"That's forced everybody in every organization to change things and look at their program, learn from that program and try to make your program better."

Bowyer said the coming change to a spoiler might change Hendrick's domination, but it might not.

"Who will the next [dominator] be?" Bowyer said. "Will it still be Hendrick? Will it be RCR? Will it be Gibbs? It better be RCR. I'm hoping for RCR dominance for five years. I'd like to ride that wave. But nevertheless, I think it's going to be a change.

"But the bottom line is the cream will always rise to the top, and it always has. Even when they went to this new car, it was the same familiar faces racing for the championship at the end of the year."

Kenseth all for change

Matt Kenseth, who won the last pre-Chase championship in 2003 but has suffered greatly the past two seasons, he said -- despite winning two races to start 2009 -- said he'd appreciate any changes NASCAR wanted to offer, over and above the wing-to-spoiler transition, bigger restrictor plates or doing away with restrictive racing rules at Daytona and Talladega.

"I'm all for mixing things up and trying something, especially the way we were running at the end of the year," Kenseth said of missing the Chase for the first time in its six-year history. "Whenever they change something and you're not running great, it's kind of a good thing because you hope to get back on top of it and you hope you work out different setups and can try some different things.

"I'm kind of looking forward to it. I don't know what it'll change. I don't know if any of us do, until we really run [a spoiler]."

Martin gives Goodyear good marks

Of course Mark Martin's biased, because as most drivers say, being behind the wheel is far from a boring proposition. But he gave credit to Goodyear for improving its tires last season.

"If you notice the difference in racing in 2008 to 2009, I certainly saw a huge difference in the development of the race cars and the development of Goodyear tires to go along with the cars that we race now," Martin said. "And Goodyear is continuing to improve and develop the tires to be phenomenal on the durability side, and yet really race-able and driveable from a driver's side, as well -- fast and racy."

Related:
• Notes: All systems go at RPM/Yates; RCR drivers look ahead