Casey Mears gets himself a new ride for the 2010 season

Good news this week for Casey Mears -- turns out that the most prominent odd man out of 2009 is the debut driver for a brand-new NASCAR team in 2010.

Mears will be driving the #90 Chevy Impala for Keyed-Up Motorsports, a new Sprint Cup-level team based in Virginia Beach. Founded by Virginia businessman Raymond Key (get it?), Keyed-Up is aligned with Key Motorsports, a Nationwide/Truck Series team owned by Raymond Key's brother Curtis. And that's more than enough "keys" for one paragraph.

Anyway, Casey will attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500 next month. "We're a new team, but I feel we have everything in place to race," Mears said. "It's going to be a rewarding endeavor."

Mears, you may recall, was the odd man out when Richard Childress Racing lost Jack Daniels sponsorship coin for the 07 season. He has one win and 12 top-5s -- but while that's a decent couple months for most drivers, that's an entire career for Casey. He's never averaged a finish higher than 18th in his career, either.

But he's a good teammate, and like Jules says in "Pulp Fiction," personality goes a long way. Kevin Harvick, one of his former colleagues at RCR, expressed strong support, even though he ended up veering into the disturbing zone. "Everybody that comes away from knowing Casey and getting to work with him is like, 'Man, that's the best guy in the world,' " he said. "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." Yeesh. Comparing losing a seat to death and the Big C? And that's the guy they call "Happy"?

Anyway, good for Mears, and best of luck to Keyed-Up Motorsports. More teams are always better.