Mears tossed by Hendrick
Results lacking for two years
LOUDON, N.H. - Last Sunday, Casey Mears checked in with a season-best fifth-place finish in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet.
Too late.
Yesterday, Hendrick Motorsports announced that Mears will not be back in 2009, booting what appeared to be a promising pilot from a high-powered ride.
"I've known now for a couple weeks," said Mears. "I didn't know exactly how things would play out. It's disappointing. I'd love to be there. Hendrick Motorsports is a great organization. We've definitely had a rough year for several reasons."
Teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. (third place, 2,256 points), Jimmie Johnson (fifth, 2,082), and Jeff Gordon (sixth, 2,041) are in position to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Mears, however, enters tomorrow's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 in 24th place (1,506 points) - a position, framed against the strength of the rest of the organization, not high enough for owner Rick Hendrick's liking.
"I don't know a lot of details of what's going on behind the scenes," Mears said. "Rick wanted to see a multiyear deal and see me get some consistency. But people made decisions. I don't know why some things have gone down. He understands my situation more than anybody. Getting some stability would be good. But decisions are made for certain reasons. It's frustrating, but at the same time you can't control a lot of these things."
Last year, his first at Hendrick, Mears drove the No. 25 Chevy to victory at the
This season, Mears climbed into the No. 5 car vacated by Kyle Busch, who moved to Joe Gibbs Racing and became the series' hottest driver.
Meanwhile, Mears and crew chief Alan Gustafson couldn't come up with accurate setups at the start, leading to a pair of 42d-place finishes in the first five races. This season, Mears has logged three DNFs and has led only a single lap.
"The biggest thing I've noticed is how sensitive these cars are," said Mears, a former open-wheel racer. "You can change everything and it doesn't do anything. It's the same. You can change about 10 million things on these cars and it doesn't respond. Then you pull an eighth of an inch out of the camber and it's the fastest car on the track. Finding the sweet spots on these cars has been difficult."
Biffle re-ups with Roush
One potential free agent is off the market as Greg Biffle signed a three-year extension with Roush Fenway Racing to man the No. 16 Ford."A lot of things went into making a decision on where I was going to be," said Biffle, seventh in the points standings. "One was Ford's commitment to the racing program and supporting us technologically, and Roush Fenway's commitment to put [general manager] Robbie Reiser in the position that they did. I just feel like we're making all the right decisions at our company right now to win championships and races. I like all the guys on the 16 team. We've developed a pretty good relationship."
Biffle, who finished second in the championship race in 2005, didn't qualify for the Chase the last two seasons. During last year's first race at New Hampshire, Biffle qualified in 34th place and finished in 31st.
MacDonald swipes checkered
When Eddie MacDonald crossed the start/finish line to win the NASCAR Camping World Series East Heluva Good 125 last night, the Rowley native did so with ease, cruising to the checkered with room to spare on second-place finisher Trevor Bayne."Just awesome," MacDonald said. "This was one of our goals this year - to win Loudon."
It wasn't so easy just a few laps earlier.
MacDonald, driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet, won his first race of the year by riding out a green-white-checkered finish. But before the final caution, which set up the two-lap race-ending shootout, MacDonald was in a dogfight with Bayne.
After MacDonald and Bayne blew past third-place finisher Matt Kobyluck, the two cars made furious bids for the lead. MacDonald nosed in front. Bayne pulled a crossover and catapulted past MacDonald. A lap later, MacDonald came back with his own crossover and shot into first. And then the caution came out.
"I would have definitely liked to have seen it go green there," Bayne said. "If I got in clean air, I might have been OK. But we just would have crossed over a couple more times and made it exciting to the finish."
