PREVIEW: CASEY MEARS (NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC CHEVROLET)
VENUE: ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY (1.54-MILE QUAD-OVAL)
CIRCUIT: NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES (RACE 33 OF 36)
EVENT: SUNDAY, OCT. 28, 2007 (325 LAPS, 500 MILES)

MEARS AT ATLANTA: Casey Mears has competed in nine NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but has yet to capture a top-10 finish. Mears led 37 laps in the March 2004 race, but an engine failure relegated him to a 34th-place finish.

HENDRICK HIGH POINTS: Only four races away from completing his first season with Hendrick Motorsports, Mears has broken or tied multiple personal records. He earned his first career victory at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May, and his five top-five Cup finishes have nearly doubled his career total. Mears' 10 top-10 results are also a single-season best, and his 21 lead-lap finishes match his record, which was set last season.

AMS KART RACE: Mears made an appearance at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this month, when he competed against local media members in a go-kart race in the track's infield. Mears had tough competition on the track, but employed the famous bump-and-run to earn the victory on the final lap.

NEW HENDRICK RECORD: Jimmie Johnson's first-place finish Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway was the 15th win of the 2007 NEXTEL Cup campaign for Hendrick Motorsports, marking the highest single-season victory total in the organization's history. Since 1984, Hendrick Motorsports has posted 164 Cup-level wins, including seven seasons with 10 victories or more: 2007 (15 wins thus far), 1998 (14 wins), 2004 (13 wins), 1996 (12 wins), 1997 (11 wins), 1995 (10 wins) and 2005 (10 wins).

GRUBB'S CHOICE: Crew chief Darian Grubb has chosen Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 384 for this Sunday's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Chassis 384 was most recently raced at Pocono Raceway, where Mears finished 10th.

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

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CASEY MEARS, DRIVER OF THE NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC CHEVROLET: (GRADE THE NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC TEAM HEADING INTO THIS WEEKEND'S RACE AT ATLANTA.) "I'd give the team an 'A' for rallying back like we have, but to overall rate our season, I'd give us a 'B' right now. The thing that we haven't done is dominate races. We've run well and finished inside the top five and top 10 consistently. We have proven that we have cars that are capable of winning races, but I think to give yourself an 'A,' you need to be dominating races. We're not there yet, but we're pretty close."

MEARS: (ON HIS GO-KART RACE AGAINST THE MEDIA AT ATLANTA EARLIER THIS MONTH.) "We went to do a media tour there in Atlanta and I thought it was fun that they did something a little different. There are a couple of good guys there. One was doing real well, and I actually had to spin him out to get by him. He was digging and I couldn't go home second. So I had to spin him out to get by him."

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DARIAN GRUBB, CREW CHIEF OF THE NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC IMPALA SS: (ON PREPARING FOR ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY.) "Honestly, we struggled a bit at Atlanta in the spring. We have really tackled this track and worked hard to change that around for this coming weekend. I think we changed just about everything, so I'm looking forward to getting back there. Atlanta is a hard place to balance overall speed, car handling for the multiple grooves around the track, and overall driver comfort so Casey can make the moves he needs to during the race to maintain position or move forward. There is another unique twist with the nighttime qualifying, and then all of the other track time during the day, so you really have to work hard to keep your attitude and handling correct heading into the night for two laps on the edge."