Mears Captures USG DUROCK 300 for First Career Win

In his 69th career NASCAR start, Casey Mears captured his first NASCAR Busch
Series victory of his career in the USG DUROCK 300 this afternoon. This was
Mears' second top-five finish at the 1.5-mile tri-oval, third top-five and
fourth top-10 of the 2006 season.

"It means everything to me to finally get a win," said Mears.
"We've been in
position a lot of time to win, had cars that could have won and for some
reason or other, I didn't bring it home, whether it was strategy or late
caution. To finally just come home with one is just a relief, and we know we
could do it. I've never really got down on myself because we've led those
laps and because we've showed we've been so dominant at times, I got the
confidence that hey, if we can get all the pieces of the puzzle together, we
can do this, and today we did that."

The No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge team, who started today's race in the
seventh spot, took a gamble late in the race, which ended up paying off.
Mears stayed out when nearly everyone else pitted with less than 50 laps to
go. This move turned out to be the decisive factor in his victory, as it gave
him the lead for good, leading the last 47 laps of the race on his way to
Gatorade Victory Lane.

Pole sitter Carl Edwards finished in second place after leading 53 laps and
dominating a majority of the race. Edwards could not pull off a late charge
to catch Mears in the end. He now ranks second in the NASCAR Busch Series
points standings with 2,599 points.

"He deserves to win that race," said Edwards, driver of the No. 60 Duck
Tape/Henkel Ford. "I didn't know he was short on gas. The way Brad Parrot
[Mears' crew chief] runs races, I figured there was something they were short
on. He's a gambler, but I didn't know he was short on fuel. He started to
slow down at the end and I guess he was trying to conserve fuel, but hey, I
just did everything I could."

Tomorrow's pole sitter for the USG SHEETROCK 400, Jeff Burton, finished
third, followed by current NASCAR Busch Series points leader Kevin Harvick
and Matt Kenseth who finished fifth. Kurt Busch, who started third, led for a
race-high 79 laps but a mid-race pit strategy put him back in the pack to
record a sixth place finish.

---
 * SLMR 2.1a * Home of AutoSportsNet * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx


--- GTMail 1.26