Mears enjoys picture-perfect day at Chicago

JOLIET, Ill. -- Everywhere he went Friday, Casey Mears was taking pictures.

	Casey Mears

And every time he went on the racetrack, Casey Mears went really fast.

Mears completed his best day in a stock car by qualifying fourth for Sunday's Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, nearly matching his Busch Series pole-winning effort earlier Friday.

"What a day for us," said Mears, a Winston Cup rookie with less than two full seasons of stock car experience.

"It's a good run all day," Mears said. "We had a good car in both ends, Busch and Cup. I just want to thank everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing to have an excellent weekend like this."

And Mears will have plenty of photographs with which to remember the day. Fuji, his sponsor on both cars this weekend, gave him a digital camera to take pictures that will be auctioned off soon. So if you're at Chicagoland Speedway this weekend, smile, you might be on Mears' candid camera.

Mears certainly was smiling a lot, and who could blame him. The Busch Series pole was the first of his career, and his Winston Cup qualifying effort was also the best of his career.

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His best qualifying effort this season was a 10th at Talladega.

"We taped up the front nose and did a couple other things hoping it was going to be a little tight for us, and it just screwed us up too much," said Mears, who was fifth-fastest in Friday's lone practice. "I got loose and got high on the first lap. On the second lap, it was just a little bit too loose."

Still, Mears can't be too upset. The only people who beat Mears on Friday were Winston Cup champions: Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Bill Elliott. Think Mears has made some strides in 2003?

"I'm getting better. This team is getting better," Mears said. "We're just all learning. I'm doing the biggest learning curve, and it's getting better all the time."

"I've got to thank my buddy here, (crew chief) Jimmy Elledge. He did an excellent job. We keep getting better and better as we go. Hopefully, we'll have good races on Saturday and Sunday now."

Mears' best Winston Cup finish has been a 15th, scored at Las Vegas. And that's the only time he's finished higher than 20th.

But he insists better times are ahead.

"I think you're going to start seeing more of us now," Mears said. "We've been learning a lot. ... I'm happy to be here and finally do a good job and get something going. We had a car to possibly win the pole, and we were just a little bit off.

"But it's been a great effort all weekend."

A picture-perfect effort.