Casey Mears' sixth-place finish was the best among the Dodge drivers. Credit: Autostock

Mears continues recent hot streak with top-10

CONCORD. N.C. -- Casey Mears is on a roll, folks.

After just five top-10 finishes in the season's first 27 races, Saturday night's sixth-place run at Lowe's Motor Speedway marked his third in the last four races.

Casey Mears

UAW-GM Quality 500 Unofficial Results Pos. Driver Pts/Bonus 1. J. Johnson 185/5 2. Ku. Busch 175/5 3. G. Biffle 170/5 4. J. Nemechek 165/5 5. M. Martin 155/0 • Complete Results: click here • Unofficial Standings: click here Inside the Chase Point standings after Lowe's Pos. Driver Points Behind 1. T. Stewart 5,777 -- 2. J. Johnson 5,777 -- 3. G. Biffle 5,766 -11 4. R. Newman 5,760 -17 5. M. Martin 5,726 -51 6. C. Edwards 5,723 -54 7. R. Wallace 5,685 -92 8. J. Mayfield 5,662 -115 9. M. Kenseth 5,653 -124 10. Ku. Busch 5,635 -142 Victory LaneJimmie Johnson celebrates his fourth consecutive LMS win Final lapsJohnson battles Nemechek, Busch late for the win UAW-GM Quality 500Check out all the highlights from Charlotte Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

"It was a good day for us," he said after leading Dodge finishers in sixth place. "Track position was so huge and right out there at the end we were running third. We had a big battle on the pit box on what we were going to do.

"I just told Jimmy [Elledge, crew chief] to do whatever he had to do."

The battle was over whether to take two tires or four for the run the checkered flag.

"It was an eight-man decision on top of the box to take two or four, and we decided to go with a conservative decision because we already had two cars in the fence [teammates Sterling Marlin and Jamie McMurray] that were up front and doing good because of tire trouble."

Given the way the rest of the night went for the majority of teams, taking four was the best decision, he said.

"We just didn't want to take a chance of having a tire blow out and risk our decent finish."

Mears was still a little disappointed at the ending, because he felt he had a chance to earn his first career Nextel Cup victory.

"I think at the end we sort of handed the win away when we didn't take two tires," Mears said. "We could have gotten out ahead of those guys."

Heading into the Chase at New Hampshire, Mears had four top-10 finishes -- a career-best fourth at Texas, a sixth at Indianapolis, seventh at Las Vegas and ninth at Chicagoland.

At Dover last month, Mears battled to 10th. After being launched out of Talladega by Ryan Newman and finishing 38th, he survived Kansas last week in eighth after making some noise in the lead bunch all day long.

Mears was able to run the entire 336 laps at Lowe's without a tire failure, which is something that the majority of the field could not do. He did have a problem with blistering right rear tires, but then, so did everyone else.

In the late stages of Saturday night's race, he managed to hold onto the top 10 despite all that was going on around him.