Vegas crucial stop if Mears is to make a run in 2008

This wasn't the way Casey Mears wanted to start his 2008 season. Running third in the closing laps of the Daytona 500, he tried to block Tony Stewart and crashed hard into the outside wall, finishing 35th. And at Fontana, Mears lost control of his car after running over water on the track, and wound up having to climb out of his overturned vehicle, saddled with a 42nd-place finish (watch video).

After two races, Mears has accumulated 95 points and is mired in 42nd place in the Sprint Cup standings. So what are his chances of rebounding to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup some 24 races from now?

• Send Mark your thoughts
• Mark's Community page

Taking into consideration the current championship structure, of the 120 drivers who would have qualified for the Chase in the past 10 seasons, just 26 were outside of the top 20 after the first two races of the year. And only five had fewer than 130 points -- and none had less than 118.

For the most point, drivers who had a miserable Daytona 500 were able to bounce back in the season's second race -- or vice versa. Tony Stewart's done it three times, including 2007, when he finished last at Daytona but eighth at Fontana. Jeff Burton, Terry Labonte, Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth have done it two times each.

It's rarer to see a Chase contender start out with two consecutive finishes outside of the top 20 -- and even rarer still for a driver with an average finish of 30th or worse rebound to make the Chase.

However, it has been done. In fact, at least one driver in two of the past three seasons has had less than 130 points after two races and still gone on to make the Chase. A third rallied to a top-12 position in points by Richmond, but 2006 marked the last year only 10 drivers were eligible for the Chase. In each case, however, that driver used Las Vegas as a springboard to jump-start his season.

In 2005, Kenseth finished 42nd at Daytona and 26th at Fontana, then came to Vegas and wound up eighth. In 2006, Greg Biffle started slowly -- 31st at Daytona and 42nd at Fontana -- and used an eighth-place finish at Las Vegas to regain his momentum. And last season, Martin Truex Jr. had just 118 points after poor finishes in his first two seasons, but was 12th at Las Vegas and eighth at Atlanta.

In 2003, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had 124 points after consecutive top-30 finishes to start the season. He promptly tore off finishes of second, third and sixth on his way to an eventual third-place finish in the points. Had there been a Chase that season, he would have been second in the standings behind Kenseth after 26 races.

And then there's the special case of Kevin Harvick's 2001 season. Taking over at Rockingham after Dale Earnhardt was killed in the season-opener, Harvick finished 14th. He would go on to finish eighth at Las Vegas and then beat Jeff Gordon in a thrilling finish at Atlanta, giving him enough momentum to overcome missing one race. After the race at Richmond, Harvick was eighth in the standings.

So Mears will be facing uncharted territory if he is able to turn his season around to that extent. However, there are some factors that do play in his favor.

Those two crashes were the first time Mears had suffered consecutive DNFs since his rookie season with Chip Ganassi in 2003. In four full seasons since, he was running at the finish in all but 11 races. In addition, Mears began to show the ability last season to string together good finishes.

After his surprising victory in the Coca-Cola 600, Mears finished 13th at Dover and then scored back-to-back fourth-place finishes at Pocono and Michigan. Later in the season, he went on a streak of 10 consecutive finishes of 22nd or better, culminating in four top-10 finishes in a row from New Hampshire to Talladega.

So there's still time, but Las Vegas looms as a major turning point in his season if Mears has any hopes of getting back into championship contention in 2008.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.