Mears holds off Edwards for first Busch Series win
Casey Mears always had the family pedigree. And as of next year, he’ll have a new ride at the elite Hendrick Motorsports team.
Now he finally has a NASCAR trophy.
“It’s funny,” Mears said. “I’m very, very excited, but almost more relieved.”
Mears squirted away on a restart with 28 laps to go, then cruised to victory in Saturday’s NASCAR Busch Series race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill.
Mears crossed the line 0.525 seconds ahead of Carl Edwards for his first career victory in a top-level NASCAR series.
Mears, the nephew of four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Rick Mears, is leaving Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of the year to drive for Hendrick. Ganassi considered taking Mears out of the Busch car after announcing he was leaving, but crew chief Brad Parrott lobbied the team owner to let Mears keep driving.
Edwards tried to chase down Mears in the closing laps, forcing Mears to dive aggressively to the apron on the final lap to get around two lapped cars.
Jeff Burton finished third as Nextel Cup regulars swept the top 10.
Craftsman Trucks
Ron Hornaday Jr. easily won his 29th career NASCAR Craftsman Trucks race, coming from 21st to win the Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky.
Hornaday, a 12-year veteran, won for the second time this year. He led coming out of the eighth caution with eight laps to go, and was never seriously challenged.
Instead, the battle was for second. Rick Crawford slipped by Brendan Gaughan for that spot.
NASCAR Nextel Cup
Despite an early season shakeup that saw him lose his crew chief to teammate Jamie McMurray, Carl Edwards heads into today’s race at Chicagoland Speedway just outside the top 10 in the Nextel Cup standings.
And now, team owner Jack Roush might reunite Edwards with crew chief Bob Osborne for the stretch run to NASCAR’s version of the playoffs.
In an attempt to spark his team’s performance, Roush made another of his trademark crew chief swaps in April, moving Osborne from Edwards’ No. 99 team to McMurray’s No. 26.
Wally Brown, the lead engineer on Edwards’ team, was promoted to become Edwards’ new crew chief.
Ferrell burns rubber
Will Ferrell got a little woozy during his joyride around Chicagoland Speedway.
“A mixture of g-forces and burning rubber after eating eggs is not the best,” Ferrell said after riding shotgun to TNT television analyst Wally Dallenbach in a two-seat Nextel Cup car for a few laps at speeds up to 150 mph.
It wasn’t the first go-around the track for Ferrell, star of the upcoming NASCAR spoof “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby.”
In preparation for the movie, Ferrell and others took a one-day Richard Petty Driving Experience course at Lowe’s Motor Speedway outside Charlotte. Behind the wheel, he topped out at 135 mph.
“We all went from wanting to leave, to after we got done with our eight laps, we wanted to go again,” Ferrell said. “It was pretty cool.”
Champ Cars
Justin Wilson posted a lap in the final moments of qualifying that was fast enough to snatch away the Champ Cars pole position for the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto from A.J. Allmendinger.
Until the final 10 seconds of the 30-minute qualifying session, it looked like Allmendinger, the only American driver in the series, had the pole wrapped up with a lap of 58.264 seconds (108.437 mph).
That’s when Wilson’s red and white RuSport CDW Lola suddenly jumped to the top of the speed chart with a lap of 58.182 seconds (108.590), relegating Allmendinger to the outside of the front row for today’s race.