Mears 14th in Gatorade Duel

Jack Daniel’s Chevy 25th on Daytona 500 Starting Grid - Race/Date: Gatorade Duel at Daytona – Feb. 12, 2009
Location: Daytona International Speedway – Daytona Beach, Fla. - Start Position: 21st - Finish Position: 14th

Daytona Beach, Fla. – Despite being caught up in a late-race incident, Casey Mears, driver of the Jack Daniel’s Chevy, finished 14th in yesterday’s first Gatorade Duel at Daytona 150-mile qualifying race.

The resulting damage kept the Bakersfield, Calif., native from making a charge at the leaders, but the end result was still good enough to secure the 25th starting position for Sunday’s 51st running of the Daytona 500.

Mears qualified a disappointing 40th in last Sunday’s time trials, but yesterday’s 150-miler afforded the Sprint Cup Series veteran an opportunity to better his starting position for Sunday’s season opener.

The green flag waved under warm, breezy Daytona Beach skies and Mears was content to ride inside the top 20 during the opening third of the 60-lap race.

The Jack Daniel’s Chevy was on pit road on lap 26 during the afternoon’s second caution flag for a fresh set of tires after the 30-year-old driver reported a tight-handling condition in the center of the corner.

A blistering-fast 13.4-second pit stop netted Mears four spots on pit road and when the 28-car field took the green flag for the lap-30 restart, the Jack Daniel’s Chevy was up to 12th in the running order. Mears cracked the top 10 two laps later and raced as high as seventh over the next 16 trips around Daytona’s legendary high banks.

Caution was on the speedway for the third time on lap 48 and the Gil Martin-prepared machine was back on pit road for another fresh set of Goodyear tires and a chassis adjustment with 10 to go.

Back under green, now in 15th, after several teams opted for only two tires during the previous pit sequence, Mears was just getting settled in for the nine lap run to the checkers when he got tagged by another car while trying to check up to avoid an incident in front of him.

The contact forced Martin to call his driver back to pit road to allow Mr. Jack’s Crew a chance to bolt on new tires and affect repairs to both ends of their black and white Chevy Impala SS.

After an extended stay on the service lane, Mears was 21st for the final restart but was still able to pick off a handsome seven spots during the closing laps to finish 14th. As a result, Mears will roll off the starting grid from the inside of the 13th row in Sunday’s “Great American Race,” the Daytona 500.

Mears’ Richard Childress Racing teammates Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick raced in the second Gatorade Duel and finished 11th, 14th and 18th, respectively. Bowyer, Burton and Harvick will start 22nd, 26th and 32nd, respectively on Sunday.

The 51st running of the Daytona 500 will be televised live on FOX Sun., Feb. 15, beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The first of 36 points-paying races on the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule can also be heard live on the Motor Racing Network and Sirius/XM Satellite Radio.

> CASEY MEARS QUOTES

“We were in pretty good shape but when they started wrecking in front of us, I checked up and got run over. It wasn’t anyone’s fault necessarily, it was just a chain reaction thing. I know Gil and the guys will get the car fixed up for Sunday so we’ll be in good shape.”