Harboring no bitterness, Casey Mears 'Keyed Up' for Daytona

By Bob Pockrass

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Casey Mears will try to make the most of his six-race deal with Keyed-Up Motorsports.

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While Richard Childress Racing continued to look for sponsorship for its No. 07 Chevrolet, Casey Mears didn’t let worries over his job situation consume him during the off-season. He had other things to worry about – such as getting married.

Mears returned from his wedding earlier this month still without a ride, but a six-race deal came together in the last week with Keyed-Up Motorsports, a new team owned by Raymond Key with veteran Doug Richert as its crew chief.

“I’ve been in the sport long enough to know that it’s easy to let the off-season consume you,” Mears said Friday in a phone interview. “I’ve had off-seasons before where you don’t know what’s going on and if you think about it the whole time, you’ll go absolutely crazy.

“I kind of was obviously upset with the way things had gone on, but in my heart felt like when I got back, I’ll get on my feet here and we’ll find out what we’ve got to do to go racing. It was good to get those couple of weeks away and enjoy the time and (I) didn’t think about it a whole lot because so much was going on personally.”

The 31-year-old Mears lost his ride with RCR when sponsorship could not be found to replace Jack Daniel’s, leaving the driver who finished 21st in the 2009 Sprint Cup standings without a ride.

“We really were trying hard to make something work over there at RCR, and kind of stuck it out all the way to the end,” said Mears, who has 252 career starts and one victory in the Cup series. “Obviously with all that going away, you start looking at what's out there, what you can do to get to Daytona.”

For Mears, the Keyed-Up team was the best alternative. It’s a start-up team, but the Key brothers have spent time in the Nationwide Series and they have no plans to start and park. For Daytona, they bought a car from Dale Earnhardt Inc. that Paul Menard put on the pole there in July 2008. The team will get its engines from Earnhardt Childress Racing Technologies.

“Obviously their goals and ideas are to run a full season,” Mears said. “You’ve got to start somewhere. We ended up cutting a deal to run the first six races, which works out for me to get to the race track. If things go well and we make the races like we’d like, it puts us in position to be able to find some sponsors a little bit better and get on to more races.”

Mears will have to qualify for races on speed or, for Daytona, through the qualifying race. For Mears, that is a fairly new position to be in as he hasn’t had to qualify for races since joining Chip Ganassi Racing in 2003.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Mears said. “I’m sure it’s going to be stressful. Do I think I’m qualified to race with these guys? Absolutely. Is everything going to go our way, is it all going to work out? I don’t know. … We feel like we’re doing the best job we can with what we’ve got and giving a real, legitimate shot.”

With the team having hired some quality personnel and a pit crew, Mears feels he has that legitimate shot. The organization is still seeking sponsorships.

“Raymond Key and all these guys here are making a true effort to try to go racing,” Mears said. “That’s what I want to do. I don’t want any part of a start-and-park program. I want to go out and race and these guys want to do the same thing. … Obviously they’re trying to secure sponsorship to run more. Raymond felt good about funding the first six and going from there. It gives me a good opportunity to assess and see exactly where we’re at and it also gives them an opportunity to buy some time, look for some sponsorship to continue.”

Mears said he is excited about the chance to work with the team and won’t be bitter over his departure from RCR.

“I understand why it all happened,” Mears said. “I’m not really the type to sit around and be bitter. … Of course, I would have loved to see things work out last year and continue on because I thought we really had a good head of steam going and things were going in the right direction.

“So is it frustrating to a certain level that things didn’t pan out after last year? Yes. But at the same time, I am excited about this opportunity and find myself thinking about going to Daytona. I’m excited and I’m a little apprehensive, and I’m curious to see how things are going to go. You know after your first couple of laps at Daytona if you’re in the ballpark or not.”