NASCAR notes: Casey Mears back home at famed Brickyard

One might think the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is part of Casey Mears’ DNA.

After all, his father, Roger, raced there in the Indianapolis 500, his uncle, Rick, won the 500 four times and, growing up, Casey dreamed of racing at the famed Brickyard, though he never thought it would be in a stock car.

This Sunday, Mears will race in the AllState 400 at the Brickyard for the sixth time. More important, it will be the 200th start of his NASCAR Sprint Cup career.

“I can’t believe I’m at 200 already,” Mears said. “It’s been a lot of fun. The past five years or so have just kind of gone by in a blur. I feel so lucky to have the career that I do and to be able to race these cars every weekend. And to do it for a living — that’s all I wanted growing up.

“The past 200 have been fun, and I hope the next 200 are even better.”

Mears, who will leave Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the season and does not yet have a ride lined up for 2009, said he can’t think of a better place for a milestone race.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “This place is so important to my family and to me personally. Every time I walk into the track I think about my dad racing (here). Then I think about my uncle Rick winning the Indy 500. All of our memories here are good ones. It’s just a very special track for me and a very fitting place for the 200th start.”

Not that Mears has spent a lot of time at the Indy track.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t get on this track until I was about 18 or 19 years old,” he said. “I had won the Jim Russell USAC Triple Crown championship that year, and they held their banquet in Indianapolis. The track was covered in snow and was pretty icy, but we took a Chevy Suburban out there and made a few laps.

“Even in that big thing, it was a pretty amazing experience.”

Mears won one of his three career poles at the Brickyard in 2004 and finished sixth there in 2005 — his only finish better than 23rd at the historic track.

Crew chief Alan Gustafson said the No. 5 Chevrolet team has put a lot of emphasis on this race.

“To us, this is the race we want to win,” Gustafson said. “The history at the track and knowing all of the guys who have won here before, it’s just amazing. We want to be one of them so bad that we work hard for it. I want to tell my grandkids that I won at Indianapolis. And I want to give that opportunity to Casey and the crew, too.”

Mears goes into the race with one career victory, a win in the 2007 Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

HEADING HOME: Two-time Brickyard winner and former IRL IndyCar Series champion Tony Stewart grew up about 50 miles from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the track holds a special place in his heart.

“It’s my home race,” Stewart said. “Growing up in Indiana and every year watching the Indy 500 and the whole month of May leading up to it — a race at the Brickyard is more than just a regular points race.

“It’s always been a big race to all of the Cup drivers but, then when you grow up in Indiana, it just makes it that much more important.”

Beyond growing up in the same state, the 37-year-old Stewart has been coming to the track practically his whole life.

“I came with my father (to the Indy 500) and I was probably 5 years old,” Stewart said of his first trip to the track. “We were in some bus that had a luggage rack in the top of it. You had to get up at o-dark-30 to get on the bus to ride up to Indianapolis for race day.

“They threw me up in the luggage rack. Somebody gave me a pillow and everybody started throwing their jackets on top of me to keep me warm. The ride home wasn’t nearly as cool because, after a long day at the track, everybody but my dad and I were kind of rowdy.”

He recalled sitting in the second row between turns three and four, along the short straightaway at the south end of the 2½-mile flat-ended oval.

“The hard thing was you could hardly see anything,” Stewart said. “The cars were so fast — they were a blur. But, to see those cars under caution and smell the methanol fumes and everything, it was pretty cool.”

LOWERING COSTS: Working with area hotel operators, souvenir and concession vendors and corporate sponsors, Lowe’s Motor Speedway has developed a multifaceted program to lower the cost of attending a NASCAR race at the suburban Charlotte racetrack.

The deal was worked out in the face of $4 a gallon gas and the continuing downturn in the American economy in an effort to ensure the ability of fans to attend the Bank of America 500 at LMS on Saturday, Oct. 11.

“Consumers are constantly faced with very difficult economic decisions and we’ve worked hard to make attending our race a more affordable entertainment opportunity,” said Marcus Smith, president and general manger of the track. “It should be about fun, not finances.

“We’ve been able to make this a group effort. Not only have we put together a ticket package that will save race fans 30 percent, they will also enjoy reduced prices on hotel rooms, concession items and souvenirs.”

He said 35 hotels located within approximately 30 miles of the track have agreed to reduce their nightly race week room rates by 15 percent and waive their minimum stay requirements.

HE SAID IT: “I hate the cliche about how we’re running better than where we are in points … but we are. I’m really excited about the second half of the season. There has been a lot of growth on this team, especially me. We still have a lot to do. But through everything we’ve been through in the first part of the season — sitting out five races — it helped me a lot. It helped this team see where we lacked. The team is strong. Chicago showed it, but there are still things we need to work on. We should be no worse than a top-20 car if we finish the race.” — A.J. Allmendinger on his situation with the No. 84 Red Bull Racing car heading into the Brickyard.

STAT OF THE WEEK: Tony Stewart is winless in the first 19 Cup races this season and it’s only the second time in his career that the two-time Cup champion has failed to win at least once in that span.

In 1999, his rookie year, Stewart waited until race No. 25 to get his first win.

Heading to Indy, his winless string has reached 33 races, the third longest among full-time Cup drivers with at least 10 career victories. The longest is former series champion Bobby Labonte’s 163 races, followed by Kevin Harvick’s 54 consecutive starts without a win.