Mears a quick study in transition to Winston Cup

Casey Mears' Winston Cup education is proceeding at a significantly quieter pace than teammate Jamie McMurray's, but that doesn't mean it isn't progressing.

	Casey Mears

The two rookies drive for owner Chip Ganassi, and McMurray is by far the media magnet (i.e., people actually know who he is). Some of his notoriety McMurray owes to ability. The rest stems from last season's six-race relief of injured Sterling Marlin, which included McMurray's first Cup win. That combination -- coupled with a good start this year -- have morphed him from anonymity into an acknowledged talent.

Mears remains a curiosity outside the garage, and possibly inside it.

Both rookies possess megawatt smiles, are easily approachable. Mears appears to be a tad more reserved, but has no trouble matching the motor-mouthed McMurray word for word (that's a compliment, Jamie) when someone asks him to talk.

Or to mentally grasp something.

"He's like a sponge, man," said Jimmy Elledge, Mears' crew chief. "He just learns things so fast. You just gotta make sure you give him the right information and keep him steered in the right direction, and he'll be fine."

Like McMurray, Mears is on his own accelerated learning curve. Last week at Las Vegas, he finished 15th, his best outing so far, and was the day's top rookie. Heading into Atlanta, he sits 25th in the Cup standings (McMurray is 21st). Both Ganassi youngsters lead the Raybestos rookie standings: McMurray is first with 33 points while Mears is second with 29, one better than Jack Sprague.

"Really, I'm pleasantly surprised how well Casey's adapting to this," said Tony Glover, Marlin's team manager. "You gotta remember, Jamie had six races last year, and then he had the winter to think about it. So he got a little jump start on him."

"I'm wide open to everything right now," Mears said. "When we get halfway through the season, I can start applying everything and start putting it all together."

Mears may have faced more initiation than McMurray because he's a fresher NASCAR convert, albeit not without genes. His uncle, Rick, is a four-time Indianapolis 500 champion. His father, Roger, is an off-road legend. The younger Mears tapped both their counsel during his own open-wheel career, which included a second-place finish in the 1999 Indy Lights series, a third-place finish in 2000 and a 2001 replacement stint in CART for the seriously injured Alex Zanardi.

But like many young drivers, Mears couldn't ignore NASCAR's lure. In his first full-time exposure to stock car racing last season, Mears ran 34 Busch series events and finished 21st. When Ganassi fired Jimmy Spencer late last year, Mears was tabbed to drive the No. 41 Dodge in December (he and Ganassi knew each other, thanks to their CART connections).

"Yeah, it's been a lot of fun," said Elledge, who also hails from a racing family. "It's different, because it kind of makes you realize sometimes how much you know about the sport that you take for granted."

Some basics, even. Elledge, 33, has worked with veterans Dale Jarrett, Bobby Hamilton, Kenny Wallace and Hut Stricklin, but he admitted, "This is the first time I've had to tell a driver how to start a car and where the battery switch is and things like that."

Excusable, considering the extreme differences between stock cars and Indy cars. Meanwhile, both McMurray and Mears continue to pester Marlin.

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"I want to learn as much as I possibly can," said Mears, who turns 25 next week. "Right now I'm just surrounded with so much experience. I would hate to be one of those guys that just says, 'Hey, I'm going to do this on my own.' Because why not learn it a little faster?"

He did in Daytona, claiming the final automatic qualifying spot in the first 125-mile qualifying race. He started 29th and finished 27th in the 500. Rockingham, however, was a baptism. Mears started 16th and finished 30th at a track that usually rewards veterans because it gobbles tires and demands precise handling and chassis configurations.

Mears fought the handling thing. He also got boxed-in on pit road once.

"In all honesty, I told Casey after the race he probably did as good a job as I've ever seen a first-time Winston Cup driver do at Rockingham," Glover said. "I mean, if you look back over the years, Jeff Gordon struggled there for a while. Bobby Labonte struggled there. For all the new guys, if there's one place you're going to struggle, Rockingham's going to tell on you."

"I think Casey's fine," said McMurray, who finished fifth at Rockingham and 32nd at Las Vegas. "We tested Vegas and Rockingham, and I felt like he was as good or better than we were at both tests. I think he's done a great job so far."

Aside from family and Ganassi's considerable resources, Mears also has relied on Jimmie Johnson. One year removed from the yellow rookie stripe on his own bumper, Johnson has been particularly helpful, especially at Daytona.

"Obviously we can't share the mechanical sides of our cars," Mears said. "That's our teams' information, but as far as driving and what he's learned in the draft over the last year, he's gone through this already, and it's fresh in his mind cause he's just done it, and he's full of information."

Forget any internal friction. Although McMurray and Mears hardly knew each other before becoming teammates, test dates and the last three months' routines have fostered empathy.

"The thing that I like so much about Casey is it just seems like he wants it so bad," McMurray said. "He's not a rich kid -- 'Yeah, a race car driver, whatever.' Casey came from a family like mine, and I feel like he wants this really bad."

Denise N. Maloof covers NASCAR for SI.com.