1on1: Casey Mears

Casey Mears has won only one Sprint Cup race in his career, which began in 2003 with Chip Ganassi Racing. That came in 2007 when Mears captured the Coca-Cola 600 while driving the No. 25 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

But Mears long ago caught the eye of team owner Richard Childress, who remembers Mears challenging for a victory during a race at Michigan not long after embarking on his career. Childress happened to be watching the race that day with Roger Mears, Casey's father who drove in two Indianapolis 500 races and was an off-road racing legend.

Bloodlines

• Casey is the nephew of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears and he son of Roger Mears, who ran in the Indy 500 twice and is an off-road racing legend.

• Casey was the second-youngest driver in USAC history to win a feature race when he did it at age 16.

• Casey began racing BMX bicycles at age 4.

• Casey's home once was featured on an episode of MTV Cribs.

"I've watched Casey's career from the time when he first came in," Childress said. "He's always impressed me. Standing up there and watching the race with your dad, you almost won the race one day up there in Michigan -- and I think I was pulling for you about as hard as I was for our cars."

Soon Mears will be in one of the Richard Childress Racing cars. He was announced as RCR's fourth driver last Saturday at Bristol, and will take over the No. 07 Chevy currently being driven by Clint Bowyer at the beginning of next season. Bowyer will move to a new car being fielded by RCR, the No. 33.

NASCAR.COM caught up with Mears and asked him about his pending new gig.

Q: How excited are you to be with RCR, and what's going to happen next?

Mears: Right now as far as Richard has said, there are still a lot of details to be worked out like as far as who's going to be in the crew and what's going to happen behind the scenes. But now that we've gotten to this point, we can go back and really evaluate all that and start figuring out exactly who is going to be with who, which crew chiefs are going to be available, what team members are going to go where. I'm looking forward to sorting a lot of that out in the next few weeks. Obviously from the RCR standpoint, they've got a lot of things to focus on right now as far as trying to get [their current three teams] in the Chase. Hopefully once they get in there and the dust settles on all that, we can start focusing on the other details.

Q: How do you think you'll blend in at RCR?

Mears: I'm really excited about it. The little bit that I've been able to go up there and tour the shop, obviously RCR has all the equipment to be a championship-contending team. With the success they've had last year and they're having again this year, it's obvious that all tools are there, the parts and pieces are there. From what I can see and from already knowing [RCR drivers] Jeff [Burton], Clint [Bowyer] and Kevin [Harvick], I think we're going to get along just fine.

I'm a big team player. That's how I like to race, that's what I like to do. I've seen a lot of success that they've had in the past working that way and I've had success with other teams working that way. I'm really looking forward to getting there, working with these guys and seeing what they've learned, and just being a part of it. So I think it's going be a good match for everybody. From the outside looking in, it really feels like it's going be a good fit. (Continued)