Know Your Driver: Casey Mears

Casey Mears

Name: Casey Mears

            Nickname: N/A

Date of Birth: March 12, 1978 (age 37)

Hometown: Bakersfield, California

Family: Tricia, wife; Samantha and Hayden, children; former IndyCar driver Roger Mears, father; former IndyCar driver Rick Mears, uncle

First Career Start: February 13, 2003 (Daytona)

Car Number and Make: #13 Chevrolet SS

Primary Sponsors:

• Geico

Team: Germain Racing

Teammates: None

Best Career Points Finish: 14th (2006)

Career Victories: 1

Notable Wins:

• 2007 Coca-Cola 600

Description: He may not have the flash that his legendary IndyCar driver uncle Rick had, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more dependable driver than Casey Mears.

Coming from a west coast open-wheel background, much like Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne, Mears bubbled into the NASCAR scene in the early 2000s after dabbling in CART and IndyCar. His first shot came in a Chip Ganassi car, but four seasons that yielded only five top-5 finishes, he departed in 2006.

In 2007, Mears was picked up by the stout Hendrick Motorsports to fill the seat of the #25 car. His inaugural season started terribly, simply put, but a gutsy fuel call by his crew chief at the Coca-Cola 600 helped Mears score his first career win, and a crown jewel event no less.

Despite the win, Mears would only last two years with Hendrick before moving to Richard Childress Racing for a season, and then essentially, be left for dead by the big teams for the 2010 season. He bounced around the beginning of the season with some small underfunded teams and subbed in a Red Bull Racing car for a bit, until he was hired by Germain Racing for the latter half of the season.

Germain was struggling at the time, but Mears came in and only missed one race the rest of the season. The results weren't great, and neither was missing the 2011 Daytona 500 the following season, but Germain stuck with Mears all the way up until now and he hasn't missed a race since. In fact, he's helped Germain's one car team become solid and steady, at least contending for a top-20 finish every week.

Mears might be approaching the latter stages of his career, but no matter how much longer he's around, he can at least know that he took a once struggling team to better than average in just a few seasons.

Fun Facts: Mears won the prestigious Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona sports car race in 2006 with IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and the now deceased Dan Wheldon.