Casey Mears and Jack Daniel’s Team Have Tough Time Under the Lights in Atlanta

Race: Pep Boys Auto 500 - Venue: Atlanta Motor Speedway – Hampton, Ga. - Start: 33rd - 
Finish: 25th - Points: 20th (Maintained Position)

HAMPTON, Ga. – Casey Mears and the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet Impala SS team of Richard Childress Racing had a tough time of it at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night en route to a 25th-place finish.

For the first time ever, AMS hosted their fall race under the lights of the 1.54-mile oval and on Labor Day Weekend. And, fans seemed to embrace the new schedule as more than 110,000 of them filled the stands.

NASCAR tried a different approach to practice and qualifying by combining them all into Saturday instead of the usual Friday run-of-show. For the first practice session, Mears and team registered the 25th-fastest time. Then, after a 30-minute break, they practiced for 60 minutes more improving to 17th on the speed chart. For qualifying later that afternoon, Mears registered 33rd on the scoring pylon to start inside row 17.

Once the initial green flew Sunday evening, Mears radioed in just two laps into the race that his No. 07 Chevrolet Impala SS wasn’t turning properly through the high banks of Atlanta. Because of the layout of the track, drivers actually spend more time in the turns than on the straightaways.

Thus, the importance of a well-turning car is paramount for success at AMS. Dropping from 33rd to 37th in the early going, Mears & Co. made air pressure changes in both front tires and a track bar adjustment on the first pit stop under caution on lap 39.

From there, the car was better in the turns right away, but Mears couldn’t capitalize as he ran 33rd after the first 150 laps. A green-flag stop on lap 188 came with fuel, four tires, air pressure adjustments and the removal of a spring rubber in the left rear.

The car showed signs of improvement as Mears moved into 29th on lap 210 and avoided several accidents, which brought out more caution flags in the ensuing laps. With more adjustments on pit stops, the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s Chevy moved as high as 23rd place for a lap 315-restart.

When the checkered flag flew at the lap-325 mark, Mears raced underneath it in 25th place. With his finish, Mears remains 20th in points and trails 19th place by only 18 markers.

His fellow RCR teammate, Kevin Harvick, led six times for 66 laps and finished second. Clint Bowyer was 29th and Jeff Burton was relegated to 34th-place finish after several setbacks trapped him three laps down for much of the race.

Kasey Kahne won his second race of 2009, while Harvick, Juan Pablo Montoya, David Reutimann and Mark Martin, respectively, rounded out the top-five finishers.

Mears and team return to race under the lights again next weekend, on Saturday night, September 12, at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway in the Chevy Rock & Roll 400. The race to decide who is in the Chase for the Sprint Cup class of 2009 will be decided with the green flag flying at 7:30 p.m. EDT on ABC-TV and the Motor Racing Network Radio and Sirius XM Radio Ch. 128. Qualifying is slated for Friday at 5:30 p.m. on SPEED with radio coverage on MRN Radio and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Ch. 128.

Casey Mears quotes – “We just really had a tough time getting our Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet to turn through the corners like we needed. We would get it better early in a run; then it would fall off later leaving us to chase it on adjustments. It just wasn’t the finished we wanted after how good we’ve been doing the last few races. The good part is the pit stops were good all night, and we kept trying to get the car better on each one.”