Question of the Day 3/25/2009

D

Digger

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Casey Mears moved to the #07 Richard Childress Racing car this season, a car that was very successful last season. With sub-par Ganassi equipment, Mears was able to garner some consistency on the cookie-cutter tracks and scored 4 top-10 finishes in 2008 with Hendrick Motorsports.

This year, Mears has fallen flat with a proven successful car and team while Bowyer has 2 top 5 and 3 top 10 finishes while Mears has none. Richard Childress is running grandson Austin Dillion on a CAN (Camping World East, ARCA, Nationwide) development program with hopes of having him in Cup soon.

Mears' subpar performances would be reason enough for Childress to axe him before his contract expires or would be a good enough reason not to extend a contract with Mears.

So the question is: Does Richard Childress want Casey Mears to fail so he can move Austin Dillon to Cup by 2011?
 
I don't think any owner wants his driver to fail. They've got a lot invested in him. If he doesn't make significent improvement that might be a reason to sideline him. When's his contract up?

Would RCR want to take on a new driver and go thru the growing pains again when Casey just might be hitting his stride?

Mark my vote as a definite "maybe, I dunno":)
 
No, I don't think he wants him to fail. Austin is probably about as good as Mike.

BTW, new here and look forward to getting to know the group..
 
No owner wants their driver to fail unless some things are going on behind the scenes like between Roush and Kurt Busch.

I like Mears, seems like a very nice guy. But he's gotten where he is on his name and hasn't backed that up. I don't think he's much of a driver on the Cup level. I'm sure Jack Daniels is thrilled with this move.
 
Casey has never really been a "top tier" driver and never will no matter what car he is in. He's is just there. He may have a good run once in a while but that's about it......
 
83WynnsOlds said:
No, I don't think he wants him to fail. Austin is probably about as good as Mike.

BTW, new here and look forward to getting to know the group..
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83WynnsOlds said:
No, I don't think he wants him to fail. Austin is probably about as good as Mike.

BTW, new here and look forward to getting to know the group..
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I think they're moving him up too fast. Going from Camping World East straight to Nationwide (with no starts in Trucks or ARCA) is a horrible idea.

Childress should put him in a Harvick car over in ARCA and run him the full season there and then, after Rockingham, let him run the remainder of the Nationwide schedule and a full season of Nationwide after that.

Same thing could be said about Logano and Speed. Logano may have won the Carolina 500k, but that was definently a fluke because a lot of the drivers that would've had a shot were swept up in an early accident - and Logano had a Joe Gibbs engine. Talent doesn't make you faster on 40-lap tires against guys on fresh tires at Rockingham. A far superior engine does that.

I don't think Logano's ready for Cup. In all honesty, he wasn't ready for Nationwide when they moved him up there... and it would do JGR and Logano a much better service to have Logano run the majority of the Nationwide schedule, along with the ARCA races at Pocono, Kentucky, Kansas and Chicago, and put a more experienced driver in the #20 Cup car until the end of the season.

I love Scott Speed, but he isn't ready for Cup either. For chrissake, even he thought it was a bad idea to move up to Cup straight from ARCA. He got screwed because Red Bull decided to go treat AJ Allmendinger like complete crap and they had to fill that seat.
 
I believe Casey Mears is a Nationwide driver at best. He's never really made a statement in Cup, and I don't think he ever will. I agree Logano was moved too early. gibbs should have brought Bobby Labonte back to drive the 20 while Joey got some laps in Trucks and Nationwide.
 
As far as Mears... he is not Sprint Cup Series material and I've said that several times. I like him but he just does not belong.

The reason I used this for today's QOTD is because this is the latest conspiracy theory to be flying around the short track divisions. I don't think RCR wants him to fail but I don't think they expect overwhelming success either. At the time they picked him up, he was the best free-agent driver avaliable.

I don't think they intend on keeping him past his contract and I do believe they hired him to be a seat-filler. But I think, when they started the 4th team, they were expecting Tony Stewart to come to Childress and their plan fell apart when Stewart got the deal from Haas.
 
To me, Casey is just another John Andretti, a good driver with a good name in racing, just not a top drawer driver.

BTW, 83WynnsOlds, loved your comment about Mike.
 
buckaroo said:
To me, Casey is just another John Andretti, a good driver with a good name in racing, just not a top drawer driver.
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I disagree 100% about John.

He's done some spectacular things with subpar equipment. If he went back to IRL and was with a solid organization, he'd be knocking off wins.
 
AndyMarquisLIVE said:
I disagree 100% about John.

He's done some spectacular things with subpar equipment. If he went back to IRL and was with a solid organization, he'd be knocking off wins.
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You must think then that John is a top driver then. I guess that's why he's in such horrible rides.

John is one thing for sure, a very good journeyman driver at best. But he's done it all from open wheeled cars to the straight line double a fuelers.
 

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My "personal buddy John" at Jack Daniels Racing told me they had confidence in Richard to do the right thing by placing Casey in their car. Now John does know the company line. ;) LOL We all know why Richard put Casey in that car: He was guaranteed to get into the first 5 races off of Clint's points from last year. PERIOD. Jack Daniels is too popular and recognizable as a sponser for this to go on too long. They're not going to want to put their money into Casey running poorly. I don't know how long Casey got a contract for, but unless he picks it up, I don't see Richard keeping him for long. Casey is a nice, likeable guy, but I think he's over his head in Cup. If he couldn't prove himself with Hendrick, I doubt he's going to do much better with RCR.

As far as moving the kid up, I don't think so. I agree about Joey and other drivers mentioned being moved up far too soon. I'm sure Home Depot isn't thrilled with having Sliced Bread as their rep. either. Nice kid, but he needs some time to grow.

If Richard expects to keep JDR as a sponsor, he'll give them a driver who will make it worth their while as soon as possible.
 
While I would like to say Casey's performance is because he has never had the same crew chief and good equipment 2 years in a row; I am not sure that is truly the case. Do I think owners always have a plan B-the good ones absolutely do and Austin Dillion could be plan B, maybe part of plan B is Harvick starts KHI cup team when Austin is ready and they play musical cars.
 
Interesting concept but I do not see it happening! Money is very tight in NASCAR right now and most likely will be for several years.

Newracefan said:
While I would like to say Casey's performance is because he has never had the same crew chief and good equipment 2 years in a row; I am not sure that is truly the case. Do I think owners always have a plan B-the good ones absolutely do and Austin Dillion could be plan B, maybe part of plan B is Harvick starts KHI cup team when Austin is ready and they play musical cars.
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I am hearing that next year Jeffery Earnhardt and Austin Dillin will run for ROTY in Nationwide. Jeffery and Kerry are splitting a Nationwide car the rest of this year starting at Texas. Jeffery will drive 7 races this year.
 
I wanted to be the first on the bandwagon to defend Casey. Other than the first two years he was in the 41 car, he has had a different car number/team every year since. How can you build a chemistry when it changes every year. But look at it this way. Look how well the 42 has done since. Look at how well the 25/88 has done. Look at how well the 5 has done even this year (save a couple of blown engines) Look at what has happened to the 07 this year. I'm skeptical that its all Casey, but it really doesn't look very favorable for him. Sure, he has only had a few races and maybe some testing this year would have helped him along, it still doesn't look favorable for him to pull out of the funk. I'm siding on the side of talent, or lack thereof, for now.
 
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