Mears running out of races

Casey Mears is 16th in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series standings and has only three races to climb into the top 12 and qualify for the Chase.
It might look grim for Mears to make the Chase, but he has two things in his favor as the Cup teams head to Bristol Motor Speedway for Saturday night's race. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Busch won the race at Bristol earlier this year. Mears went from starting 16th to finishing 10th at Bristol.
His team is taking the same car that finished 10th in the first Bristol, which also happened the be the first race for NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.
"Staying up front is definitely key at Bristol because trouble tends to brew in the back," said Mears, driver of the No. 25 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. "The best thing you can do as a driver and as a team is to qualify well and hopefully hold that position when things start to get wild behind you during the race."
The track at Bristol was recently repaved, adding another wrinkle to what is described as the most unpredictable track in NASCAR.
"Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to expect this weekend," Mears said. "The track sounds like it is a good bit different in the way that it drives. You can run around the bottom like you did before, but it also sounds like some guys are running just off the bottom now as well. Also, the lap times in general seem a little bit slower, but I don't know if that's because of the harder tire or because of the track itself not having as much grip. So, there are a number of unknowns, but I'm looking forward to getting on track and trying it out for myself."