USG Durock 300 - Casey Mears Notes

PREVIEW: CASEY MEARS (NO. 24 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET)
VENUE: CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY (1.5-MILE TRI-OVAL)
CIRCUIT: NASCAR BUSCH SERIES (RACE 20 OF 35)
EVENT: SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2007 (200 LAPS, 300 MILES)

RETURNING VICTOR: Casey Mears earned his first NASCAR Busch Series victory at Chicagoland Speedway last year. Mears started seventh and led the final 47 laps to secure the win in his 69th Busch Series start.

FIRST POLE: Chicagoland Speedway has been a strong track for Mears in Busch Series competition. He earned his first career pole there in 2003, which produced a fourth-place finish.

TOP-10 TEAM: The No. 24 National Guard Busch Series team has earned 10 consecutive top-10 finishes and 11 overall top 10s in the 12 races it has competed in this season. The team's 8.6 average finish puts it among the top five in that category this season.

EYEING THE POINTS: Despite running a very limited Busch Series schedule this season, Mears sits 15th in the championship standings, just 107 points outside of the top 10.

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS: This weekend, the 33rd Infantry "Golden Cross" Brigade will be honored on the No. 24 National Guard Chevrolet. Members of the Golden Cross Brigade will meet with Mears and the No. 24 team on Saturday prior to watching the action from the National Guard pit box.

NEW CAR: Crew chief Chad Walter has selected Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 299 for Saturday's Busch Series race at Chicagoland Speedway. Chassis 299 has not been raced this season.

* * * * * * * * * *

AUTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE: Casey Mears will greet fans and sign autographs at 10:30 a.m. local time on Sunday at the No. 25 National Guard/GMAC souvenir hauler outside Chicagoland Speedway.

* * * * * * * * * *

CASEY MEARS, DRIVER OF THE NO. 24 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET: (ON EARNING HIS FIRST CAREER NASCAR BUSCH SERIES WIN AT CHICAGOLAND LAST SUMMER.) "You know we had a fast race car that whole race -- top five the whole race long -- and made a gamble on fuel there at the end. Not only made a gamble, but had a very fast race car. It was a lot of fun. It was a great win and it felt good to get that off my shoulders. We are right around the corner from doing it again. Chicago is a really fun race track. I love racing there. For some reason, I tend to always be quick there. I don't know what it is about that track that suits me, but for some reason we run really well."

MEARS: (ON WHY CHICAGOLAND SUITS HIS DRIVING STYLE.) "I really don't know. I mean the Busch car is definitely a little bit easier car to drive with the downforce that we have there, but for some reason, the track at Chicago I've adapted well to. I mean, from the very first time we've set a tire on that track, we've been fast. I'm really looking forward to going back there, especially with what we've learned over here on the downforce side of things and I think it's going to be a fun track for us."

MEARS: (ON WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN WELL AT CHICAGOLAND.) "The biggest thing is that your car can get really tight, so you got to be plenty free enough early in a run to be good after about 10 laps. So basically what you got to do is make the car loose enough that you can barely hang on to it and still keep up and then after about 10 laps, the other guys start to getting really tight and you can start getting underneath them. Momentum is really huge there. You got to keep your momentum up. Getting around lapped cars is very critical because you could easily lose two or three seconds by getting held up behind somebody that's half a second slower than you are, so there's a lot of things there it takes to run well."