Casey Mears, pinch hitting for an injured Jeff Burton in Saturday's Nationwide Series O'Reilly Challenge, did his teammate proud by finishing in the runner-up position to race winner Kyle Busch.
Mears was tabbed to substitute for Burton, who was shaken up in a Cup Series practice session accident on Friday.
Burton was on the schedule to run the No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet in the Nationwide race on Saturday as well as Sunday's Dickies 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway. It would have been Burton's 12th Nationwide Series start for Richard Childress Racing.
Childress made the decision to take Burton out of the car after he wrecked in Turn 2 during the first practice for the Cup race. Burton was not seriously injured, but shaken up enough to force Childress to remove him from the Nationwide ride.
"I'm OK," Burton said after the wreck. "My head hurts, but I actually feel a lot better now than I did two hours ago."
According to Burton, the wreck was apparently caused by a power steering problem.
"I just couldn't get it turned and it missed the soft wall," he said. "It hit the back, then smacked the front and it dazed me.
"He (Childress) made the call and he did it wholly for my well-being. I don't like it, but I appreciate the hell out of it. He just wanted to make sure that I don't do something stupid."
Childress went immediately to Burton's teammate, Mears, who drives the RCR No. 07 Jack Daniels Chevrolet in the Sprint Cup Series. Mears has traditionally run well at Texas Motor Speedway, with two top-five and four top-ten finishes.
Although Mears had not been behind the wheel of a Nationwide car since the 2007 season, he managed to qualify the car in the 14th position to start the race. Mears had the car in contention for most of the O'Reilly Challenge, but put on a late-race push to finish in the second position.
"That was fun," Mears said after climbing out of his substitute ride. "I've been wanting to run a Nationwide race but haven't had the opportunity.
"It took an unfortunate event, but after all that we went through, it was a good run for the Holiday Inn Chevy."
