Casey Mears Press Conference At Preseason Thunder

Casey Mears will be driving the No. 07 Jack Daniels Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing in 2009.

With a new team and new situation, here's hoping he can kick in gear and make it work! Considering how well the team performed, he's got mildly big shoes to fill.

Like everyone, he noted how they're not in the car as much with the new testing rules, though they have done some testing "here and there".

He knows he's landing in a great organization and he wants to continue the cars success it had from last year. He feels he's a good fit into the RCR team. He said that not only did the team gel quickly, but some of their test showed they were pretty quick on the track too!

When asked about how the teams are skirting the "no test" rules on NASCAR sanctioned tracks, obviously NASCAR left the "out" on the sanctioned track part, but he feels there might be better ways to approach this testing ban to get it in the right direction because he feels it's not fair to the rookies coming in.

He almost made a good argument for the test ban here at Daytona. Noting that sometimes you can make a ton of changes for 1/10th of a second. But in the process, you'd go out on track, test, make changes, then sit on pit road for 30 or 40 minutes to get back out there and test the changes. Heading off to the GM proving grounds like they did, it was a different fashion of testing.

I keyed in on how the sponsor guys from Jack Daniels are a great bunch of guys to hang around. Dang, I'd like a Jack Daniels sponsor on my blog! I'm thnking product samples! Hmm.. might mess with the writing though!

He also pointed out that though he's not racing on the same team as his good friend, Jimmie Johnson, he said once you get to the track, that's all moot. It's business in the office so he doens't necessarily miss his bud while on-track.

As far as any inclinations of pondering his going into IndyCars, he said the best racing is right here in NASCAR and when you beat NASCAR drivers, you're beating the best.

GOOD LUCK TO Casey Mears for the 2009 season from NASCAR Bits and Pieces.

Do you think he can take the Chevy to victory lane this year? And make a repeat appearance for the No. 07 in the chase year? Chime in and let me know!

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Photo Cr: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR