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Will Casey Mears ever live up to the hype?

February 20th 2010 09:03

Well for the second race in a row the Casey Mears #90 car will not be in the race. The Keyed-Up Cheverolet was one of three cars to leave California on Friday after quailifying.

Casey Mears became a full time driver in the Sprint Cup series in 2003 with Chip Ganassi Racing driving the #41. He would drive for Ganassi till the end of the 2006 season where he moved to Rick Hendrick's team. Mears would score his first win in 2007 winning the Coca Cola 600. Mears would drive one more year with Hendrick before moving to Richard Childress Racing for the 2009 season which did not produce anything great. Mears was dropped once spornship fell thru for the 2010 season.

So with mears on his fourth team now and two races in and DNQ in both things are not looking good for Mears.

Mears had started in 252 straight races before missing they 2 races to start the 2010 season.

Casey Mears stats: 252 races 1 win 12 Top 5's 46 top 10's He never finished higher than 14th in the final point standings.

Time is running out on Mears be on the lookout for him to do alot of Nationwide racing in the future.

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McMurray wins the Great American Race

February 16th 2010 13:11

By Joe Menzer, NASCAR.COM
February 15, 2010
03:35 PM EST

In the end, the 2010 Daytona 500 was about redemption.

On a day of furious racing that turned into a cold night as a hole in the asphalt threatened to swallow NASCAR's biggest race whole, the finish, surprisingly, was overflowing with redeeming qualities.

Sure, there was Dale Earnhardt Jr. charging through the pack like a driver possessed -- whipping what remained of the sellout crowd into a frenzied state. Earnhardt being in it at the finish is never a bad thing for NASCAR. After a disappointing season that yielded a career-worst finish in the point standings, Earnhardt had to be feeling a little redemption for himself Sunday. As a direct result, Daytona International Speedway was granted some on a date in which it did not cover itself in typical glory and didn't really deserve it.

But the real Kings of Redemption resided in Victory Lane afterward, and Earnhardt, despite his late-race heroics, finished second.

Winning driver Jamie McMurray was there along with car owners Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates. The three were reunited after last season -- when McMurray found himself the odd man out at Roush Fenway Racing at the same time Ganassi and Sabates discovered themselves short one driver following the departure of Martin Truex Jr. to Michael Waltrip Racing.

"As a kid growing up, this is what you dream of -- of being able to win the Daytona 500," a beaming McMurray told reporters in the DIS media center afterward.

Reunited and it feels so good

Oddly enough, McMurray got his start in the Cup Series in 2002 with the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates organization (which, now, because of a merger last year has been renamed Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates). McMurray first visited a Cup Victory Lane in only his second race, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, having replaced veteran Sterling Marlin following Marlin's season-ending neck injury.

While racing full time for Ganassi and Sabates in the next three seasons, McMurray never did win another race. But he did finish respectably in the point standings, finishing no lower than 13th. That included finishes of 11th and 12th, respectively, the first two years of the Chase, when 10 drivers, and not the 12 under the current format, qualified for the chance to win the title.

Then McMurray left. A more lucrative contract beckoned at Roush Fenway Racing, along with the supposed lure of a better chance to win races and compete for championships.

Four years and only two wins for McMurray later, team owner Jack Roush needed to cut one car and driver loose from his five-car stable to comply with NASCAR rules limiting organizations to four. McMurray was the odd man out.

Ganassi, who heads up Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, took him back with open arms. Well, first McMurray had to do a little begging ... but only a little.

It wasn't the first time a driver employed by Ganassi had left him, only to return later when the asphalt did not prove smoother elsewhere. Ganassi openly admits that he can't always pay drivers what they might make elsewhere -- and until last season when he put driver Juan Montoya in the Chase, his promise of putting said drivers in top-notch equipment, quite frankly, often rang hollow.

Again, as with McMurray, Sunday was a day of redemption for Ganassi.

"In terms of bringing Jamie back, like I've said earlier, it certainly wasn't anything that was acrimonious when he left us," Ganassi said. "Believe me, I would have been perfectly happy keeping all these guys I bring back who seem to have some success. I would have been perfectly happy keeping them in the first place.

"But I've always thought that we've tried to put our money into the cars and the engines. I don't have a lot. I don't have the biggest jet over at the airport there and the flashiest trucks. We're in the business of racing. I don't want to take anything away from anyone else, but we have to spend our money wisely."

An emotional McMurray added of the Daytona 500 triumph: "It just means so much. You know, for me to be in the position that I was four or five months ago -- to have Chip and Felix and [No 1 car sponsor] Bass Pro Shops welcome me into their organization -- it means a lot. It's a great way for me to be able to pay those guys back."

Different day, different driver

McMurray is quick to point out that he is a different person -- and a different driver -- than he was the first time he passed through a Ganassi-led organization. When he stepped in for Marlin with six races left in the 2002 season, Marlin, immensely popular with fans, was sitting fifth in the points.

"When I first came and drove for Chip and Felix in 2002, I was very overwhelmed with the environment that I was put in," McMurray said. "That was big shoes [to fill] to get in Sterling's car. I mean, a huge learning curve."

When a win came quickly, it perhaps came at a price. It made everyone involved think, at least ever so briefly, that perhaps it was all going to be too easy for McMurray to keep making return trips to Victory Lane.

When it wasn't and he had the chance to go elsewhere to see if it could be easier there, he jumped at it. And when it didn't happen at the other place, McMurray had to, at times, battle the beginnings of self-doubt that threatened to creep in.

But when the opportunity came for a return to his Cup roots, so to speak, McMurray immediately felt comfortable with the idea.

"I've told you guys [in the media] every time you've asked me: it's been a lot easier coming back to this organization than it was when I left and went to Roush because I already knew everybody here," McMurray said. "I've said that it was very warm and welcoming to me when I got to the shop. It's everything from the guys in the fab shop to the accountants ... I mean everywhere throughout the shop. I'm very comfortable and I know everybody. I think that has made this transition easier than if I went to an organization I didn't know."

Meanwhile, Ganassi and Sabates -- who have been at this a long, long time with little in the way of tangible results at the NASCAR level to really show for it -- ultimately felt the same way about bringing back McMurray. On Sunday, all were rewarded for their faith in each other and in Ganassi's long-held belief that his tremendous success in other forms of racing could eventually translate to the stock-car side.

"Like Jamie said, from a little boy, you think about winning this race," Ganassi said. "I think back to how I got started in racing -- whether it's with little cars, go-karts, slot cars, then obviously driving, the IndyCar successes we've had, the sports-car successes. There was always some question about, is our NASCAR team up to the task?

"You know, putting a car in the Chase last year sort of, I think, validated the way we run the business. Hopefully this [victory] did that as well."

Sabates added: "We got beat up a little bit. ...We've taken our criticism from the press. But Chip is a very focused person. If you cut his veins, he's got motor oil coming out of them. He never wavered from the plan he had."

The plan never really included letting McMurray get away in the first place. But like the forgiving father in the Bible's parable of the prodigal son, Ganassi was waiting and willing to welcome the driver back when the timing was right for both. You might say Ganassi even slaughtered a calf and threw a party upon McMurray's return, or at least he took him to dinner.

Now they even often dine together during race weekends, or at least they did during their first reunited ones in 2010 -- with spectacular end results. Forget the calf. Now, together, they have slayed the Daytona 500 dragon.

"He's my car owner, but he's also my friend. I think that's really important," McMurray said of Ganassi. "I think that's something I haven't had in the last four years."

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Timothy Peters surprise winner of Truck series at Daytona

February 14th 2010 07:54

With a last-lap pass of superspeedway ace Todd Bodine, Timothy Peters won Saturday night's NextEra Energy 250 Truck Series race at 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway.

With a push from polesitter Jason White, Peters passed Bodine on the backstretch and won the race to the finish line. Bodine, who had won the previous two season openers at Daytona, crossed the stripe in second place but spun into the infield grass after taking the checkered flag.

"I can't believe it -- this thing drove like a Lexus tonight," Peters said of his No. 17 Toyota Tundra. "We just won Daytona! I was just content where I was at, but the No. 23 [White] came up and gave me a great run.

"I can't believe it -- I'm going to Disney World!"

Peters' only previous win in the series came at .526-mile Martinsville Speedway.

Dennis Setzer, White and Matt Crafton rounded out the top five, as Bodine took solace from his second-place run -- magnified by wrecks that ruined the nights of defending series champion Ron Hornaday and Mike Skinner, perennial contenders for the Truck Series title.

"You're a sitting duck leading," Bodine said ruefully. "I saw the replay when I was sitting down there in the mud [after spinning]. Timmy did what he had to do.

"We're disappointed. There's no doubt about it. But second's nothing to sneeze at."

Two separate crashes on the pace laps -- before the race had started -- promised an action-filled evening, and, indeed, before the race was a lap old, Aric Almirola took the field three-wide in Turn 3. Austin Dillon, making his first superspeedway start, broke loose between trucks and ignited a nine-truck collision that damaged the trucks of Kyle Busch and Landon Cassill, among others.

"I really don't know what was happening," Dillon said after exiting the infield care center. "I was sucking up to Jason White and someone got under me. Just looked like they weren't being very patient there to start. Just caught in the middle and got banged around there a few times and tried to save it -- just nothing I could do there."

Hornaday was the victim of a 10-truck wreck after a bump from Ricky Carmichael turned him into the outside wall at the end of the backstretch on Lap 32. The same wreck ruined the winning chances of front-row starter Elliott Sadler. Skinner's race ended early after a tap from Peters launched him into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 62.

This story was written by By NASCAR.COM
February 13, 2010
11:18 PM EST

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Tony Stewart wins Nationwide race at Daytona

February 14th 2010 07:51

It was Tony Stewart's good fortune to lead much of Saturday's Drive4COPD 300 Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway -- because all hell kept breaking loose behind him

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Johnson, Kahne grab Duels Win

February 12th 2010 13:04

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Mark Martin Grabs pole for the Daytona 500

February 8th 2010 04:38

Mark Martin came across the line with a time of 47.074 seconds to beat out crowd favriote Dale Earnhardt Jr to grab the pole for the Daytona 500

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Up and down day leads to a sixth place finish for Danica

February 7th 2010 18:10

Danica Patrick who made her first ever start in a stock car at the ARCA 200 in Daytona on Saturday had an up and down day but she finished sixth with a late charge

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Let the crash derby begin?

February 6th 2010 08:35

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Prism Motorsports will run two teams in 2010

February 3rd 2010 17:39

Prism Motorsports will field car numbers 55 and 66 for the Daytona 500 and beyond. The plan is two have both cars race the full season. The number 55 will be driven by Michael McDowell and the 66 driven by Dave Blaney. Both cars need to qualify on speed for the first five races

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