Mears goes the longest mile.

Monday, 28th May 2007

Casey Mears scored his maiden Nextel Cup Series win in Sunday's marathon Coca Cola 600, surviving a near six-hour race of attrition to eventually win thanks to his superior fuel mileage.

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After an engine failure eliminated Newman, power steering failure thwarted Vickers and a total of three (separate) crashes did for the Busch brothers, Stewart was left leading at the final restart despite having sustained some pretty substantial damage in a 15 car pile-up on lap 54, ironically caused when Johnson lost a tyre on the front stretch in front of the field.

Mears took the restart in second place despite having not led a lap so far with Earnhardt Jr third, Kenseth fourth and the wily Mark Martin fifth. Johnson, who appeared to be heading for his fourth Coca Cola 600 win prior to the 13th and final caution period, took the final restart in tenth place after a slow pitstop.

With NASCAR's 19 gallon fuel cell good for between 50 and 55 laps of green flag running, most of the 15 lead lap contenders knew that they would have to make another stop if the race stayed green although everybody still tried to save as much fuel as possible whilst still trying to race their way to the front.

Stewart maintained the lead in the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet until he made his final stop for fuel on lap 392 but behind him there was plenty of battling as Earnhardt Jr and Denny Hamlin passed Mears for second and third with a surging Johnson also powering around the outside of his teammate for fourth as Mears began to ease back.

Of the leaders Matt Kenseth was the first to show his hand and pit for fuel with Johnson following suit on lap 391 and Martin and Stewart coming in a lap later. Earnhardt Jr led a lap before he stopped on lap 393, briefly handing the lead to Hamlin before he too pitted. On lap 395 Mears assumed the lead and suddenly found himself more than ten seconds ahead of the second place driver, JJ Yeley.

After watching his two Joe Gibbs teammates pitting Yeley, who is under pressure to perform in the final year of his contract, threw the dice and elected to gamble as well and with Kyle Petty, Reed Sorenson and Vickers also staying out and therefore easing off the throttle, Mears was left with no incoming threat from behind.