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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Stewart was the best placed of those who did make a late stop for fuel in sixth position with Ricky Rudd, the last of the gamblers, scoring his best result of the year for Robert Yates Racing in seventh. With the guidance of the suspended Tony Eury Jr, eighth place for Dale Earnhardt Jr was a major fillip following a night where the #8 DEI Chevrolet was rarely out of the top five while Hamlin and Johnson completed the top ten.

Even though Johnson and the #48 Hendrick team will rue their slow penultimate stop, the defending series champion can count himself lucky to have been around at the finish at all after his earlier contact with AJ Allmendinger resulted in his potentially catastrophic tyre failure right at the start/finish line.

While Johnson was able to recover to the pits unscathed following the departure of his left rear Goodyear many others weren't as lucky with Dave Blaney turning Tony Stewart sideways at the entrance to turn one to trigger the melee. When the smoke cleared Martin Truex Jr, Kevin Harvick, Scott Riggs, defending Coca Cola 600 winner Kasey Kahne, Jeff Green, David Gilliland, Elliott Sadler, Johnny Sauter, Clint Bowyer, Juan Montoya, Dale Jarrett and David Ragan all had damage of varying degrees in addition to Petty, Stewart and Blaney.

That wasn't the only hard hit of the night as points leader Jeff Gordon went for a wild ride on lap 62 after he spun through the infield grass before turning head on into the outside wall right at the start line, As Gordon struck the wall he was T-boned by Allmendinger which lifted the #24 Hendrick Chevrolet off the ground and out of the race.

Gordon was classified 41st and was joined on the DNF list by puncture victim Greg Biffle (43rd), poleman Newman (39th), the returning Bill Elliott (38th) and Newman's teammate Busch (32nd).

Next week the Cup Series teams will have another equally arduous test as they visit the ‘Monster Mile' at Dover International Speedway where Mears and his Hendrick teammates will aim to go six-for-six with the Car of Tomorrow.