PREVIEW: CASEY MEARS (NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC IMPALA SS)
VENUE: WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL (2.45-MILE ROAD COURSE)
CIRCUIT: NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES (RACE 22 OF 36)
EVENT: SUNDAY, AUG. 12, 2007 (90 LAPS, 220.5 MILES)

THE PROOF IS IN POCONO: After a wreck in practice forced Casey Mears to a backup car last Friday at Pocono Raceway, the No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Chevrolet team didn't skip a beat. The crew had Mears' backup Monte Carlo SS ready in time for afternoon qualifying and their driver posted the eighth-fastest lap despite having no practice time in the car.

TOP-10 COUNT: Mears turned his eighth-place qualifying effort into a 10th-place finish at Pocono and earned his sixth top-10 finish of the year. Mears' career-best for top-10s in one season is nine, a total he achieved in both 2004 and 2005.

MEARS AT THE GLEN: On Sunday, Mears will make his fifth career NEXTEL Cup start at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. The 29-year-old driver's best result at the 2.45-mile road course came in 2004 when he led eight laps on his way to a fourth-place finish.

RE-INTRODUCING THE IMPALA SS: The Impala SS will return to competition when the NEXTEL Cup Series makes its annual stop at Watkins Glen this weekend. In eight races featuring the Impala SS this season, Mears' best finish is a 10th-place result at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

CHASSIS 440 FOR MEARS: Crew chief Darian Grubb has selected Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 440 for Sunday's race at Watkins Glen. Last week, Mears and the No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Chevrolet team tested the car at Road Atlanta in preparation for this weekend's road-course event. Chassis No. 440 also saw race action in June when Mears overcame early power steering problems and manhandled his way to a 27th-place finish at Infineon Raceway.

25 TEAM REWIND: Car owner Rick Hendrick has earned six NEXTEL Cup wins at Watkins Glen with three different drivers, but his first victory at the 11-turn road course came in 1986 with the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Driver Tim Richmond qualified on the pole and led 29 laps en route to winning the first Cup Series race held at the Glen since 1965.

GRIDIRON CONNECTION: While Mears is racing in Watkins Glen this weekend, his friend David Carr will be taking on the New York Giants a few hours away in East Rutherford, N.J., as the Carolina Panthers play their first NFL pre-season game of the year. It wasn't all that long ago when Carr, who joined the Panthers in April as a free-agent quarterback after spending five seasons with the Houston Texans, was sharing the football field with Mears at Stockdale High School in Bakersfield, Calif. Mears, who graduated in 1996, played fullback and halfback for the team while his strong-armed teammate racked up 16 school records in two seasons as starting quarterback for the Mustangs.

PARALLEL CAREERS: Carr went on to play at Fresno State and was the first player selected overall in the 2002 NFL draft while Mears pursued his dream of a professional racing career through the open-wheel and stock-car ranks. Fast-forward a decade and their lives have intersected again -- but on the opposite coast of where it all began. Mears, 29, and Carr, 28, both now live in the Charlotte, N.C., area and enjoy keeping close tabs on each other's careers. On Memorial Day weekend, Carr watched from pit road as Mears won the annual 600-mile race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, which marked the Hendrick Motorsports driver's first victory at NASCAR's highest level. And when the NASCAR season wraps up in November, Mears hopes to attend a Panthers game or two and lend his support to Carr as he takes the field with his new team.

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CASEY'S CROWD: 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 Watkins Glen International.

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CASEY MEARS, DRIVER OF THE NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC IMPALA SS: (ON THE CHALLENGE OF RUNNING BOTH THE CUP AND BUSCH RACES THIS WEEKEND.) "It's not easy to jump back and forth between the Busch car and the new Cup car at a road course. You have to be able to flip a switch in your head, and that was a little bit of a challenge for me back in June at Infineon (Raceway). It's a good challenge, but the two cars feel a lot different and you've just got to find a way to make the adjustment as fast as you can."

MEARS: (ON HOW TEAMS MUST ADJUST TO ROAD COURSES WITH THE IMPALA SS.) "Relative to the cars we've had in the past, the Impala SS is just a lot more difficult to drive. The way the car is built and designed does not cater to a road course. It's a top-heavy car and doesn't brake or change direction as well. So, relative to our old car, it's a good bit worse in a lot of ways, but relative to everybody else, we're all fighting the same things and dealing with the same challenges. The level playing field is good. Overall, I think everyone at Hendrick Motorsports has done a very good job with the new Impala SS, and it's up to our No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Chevrolet team to take it from there."

MEARS: (ON HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH CAROLINA PANTHERS QUARTERBACK DAVID CARR.) "David is just a great guy and an outstanding athlete. I was nowhere near his league back in high school, but I like to think I was pretty scrappy and I know I had fun trying to keep up. It's been fun to follow his career as I was building my own, too. We haven't really been in the same place since high school, but then David signed on with the Panthers and all of sudden we were living in the same town again. It's a pretty neat twist of fate, and it's been great to have him around. I think we both feel very fortunate to be doing what we're doing right now in our careers. Back then, we were just two kids from Bakersfield with big dreams and now we get to live them out."

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DARIAN GRUBB, CREW CHIEF OF THE NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC IMPALA SS: (ON PREPARING FOR WATKINS GLEN.) "Road Atlanta was a good way for us to test general road-race tuning and helped us work on our setup. Watkins Glen is a tough place to find handling balance because it has the long backstretch and the high-speed, uphill esses leading into it. Plus, you still have a very heavy downhill braking zone heading into turn one after the frontstretch and some lower speed off the camber corners. So, overall balance is much more important to making the driver comfortable, and that was something we focused on in testing."