Casey Mears

Casey Mears is what we call an avid racer. His uncle, Rick Mears, was a four time winner of the Indy500 while his father, Roger Mears, is a two time Indy500 started and somewhat of a legend at off-road racing.

He started off in BMX before going into the world of car racing. He became the youngest racer to win a full event at the age of 16. He too started racing really early and by the time he got out of his teens, he was racing at the professional levels. He participated in the Indy Lights Series and had a brilliant year in driving and reliability. He became only the fourth driver ever, in the history of the sport, to complete each and every lap. Not just that, he even got three race wins on his way to the second place in the season's standings. In 2000, he began what became his path to the big leagues. He finished third in the Indy Lights series and won his first race of the season at the Grand Prix of Houston. He chose other forms of racing as well when he took part in his first CART race start at the California Speedway. He finished fourth in that one-off race. The big moment, however, was when he completed a rookie test for the Indy500 series. That was what he would want to look at some stage of his career.

In 2001, he replaced Alex Zanardi in the CART series after Zanardi got involved in a dangerous accident. He scored two top-10 finishes in four starts while his ARCA career got a ninth place finish at Talladega in 2001. Casey seemed to be drawing close to NASCAR and a solid season in 2002 saw him enter the highest level. Casey was doing well in his first season and came home in 21st place after the 2002 NASCAR Nationwide Series. At Talladega, he scored a top-five finish; his best for the season. In the December of 2002, Casey announced that he would be driving for Chip Ganassi racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, this after his debut season.

In 2003, he won his maiden stock-car race in an ARCA event, at Michigan. He went onto the remaining season with back-to-back races at Pocono. With two top-10 wins in 34 starts, he had really impressed at the level and had a highest start of an outside pole position. In NASCAR, Casey's first season was not that special, in fact, he struggled the entire way. He finished 35th in the points table after failing to finish in 11 races. He took part in 14 races and with 4 top-10 finishes to his name, completed his rookie season.

He improved a lot in his next season and came 22nd in the points' series. He got his first pole position at Pocono in August and then at Indianapolis. He became the only Ganassi team driver to finish in the top-5s when he came fourth at Watkins Glen.

Casey had a better series in 2005 where he finished fourth at both the Texas events. He finished the season with a flurry when he captured two top-five finishes along with five top-10 finishes in the final 10 events. From just 9 laps that he led in 2004, he went on to lead 145 laps that season. Although his ranking didn't change, he had certainly improved his performances.

In 2006, he makes it better. 14th overall in the entire series, He came second in two races. He was in the top-10 rankings of NASCAR for the first eight weeks. He had spent three seasons with Chip Ganassi Racing but now, he felt that it was time to shift to Hendrick Motorsports for the 2007 season. He couldn't do much better and just finished 15 in the 2007 NASCAR season. He had an incredible 5 top-five finishes with 10 top-10 finishes as well and also won his first race in May, at Lowe's. Although he had a poor start to the season, ranked 35 in May, he climbed his way back up the pile to get to 15th spot.

In 2008, Casey will be hoping to continue his race up the standings and start to become a bit more competitive in the title chase.