For Mears, a little stability might go a very long way

If it's spring, then it must be time for Casey Mears to get fired again.

At least that's the way it seems. After all, this time last year the Hendrick Motorsports driver lived with the ghost of Dale Earnhardt Jr. over his shoulder, and the assumption that if somebody had to go to make room for the sport's most popular driver on NASCAR's superteam, it would be him. Now with two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart testing the free agent waters, the rumblings are beginning again. Whenever some heavy-hitter becomes available, the defending champion of Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 turns into Mr. Expendable.

Funny thing, though. Earnhardt joined Hendrick, yet Mears is still around, albeit in new colors and in a different-numbered car. He's says he's solid through the end of his current contract, which expires after 2009. And yet so many people seem so willing to move him out of the way.

"It's not something that I think about. It doesn't weigh on my mind," Mears said. "But it gets a little frustrating to go to a press conference and hear, 'Hey, are you going to lose your job?' It seems like I kind of get that every year just because of the situations I've been in. Now, for the first time, I'm not in that situation, but they're wanting to put me in that situation anyway, which is really weird. I'm very solid here. I have a good contract through the next couple of years, and everybody is really focused on the future here."

The future is something Mears, a 30-year-old from Bakersfield, Calif., hasn't been able to focus on in recent years. His first three seasons on NASCAR's premier circuit, he drove the No. 41 car for Chip Ganassi Racing. But since then he's become something of a nomad, being shuffled from car to car by owners looking to reorganize, and in the process struggling to build the long-term relationships with crew chiefs and team members that Hendrick teammates like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have found so fruitful. In 2006, Mears was shifted over to Ganassi's No. 42 team. In 2007, he joined Hendrick's No. 25. This year, with the addition of Earnhardt and departure of Kyle Busch, he finds himself in the No. 5.

That's four teams and four cars in four years, a challenge to any driver trying to build consistency in the unforgiving world of Sprint Cup. In that same span he's had five crew chiefs, prepping for the 2007 campaign with Lance McGrew before Hendrick officials swapped him out for Darian Grubb. Barring any changes, next season will be the first time since 2004-05 that Mears has had the luxury of starting the season with the same team and crew chief that he had in the previous one.

"That's the biggest thing I've been lacking the last four years," Mears said. "It just seems like we spend the first part of the year getting to know each other and figuring things out. I've kind of become an expert at moving around, which is not something you want to be an expert on. When you look at a lot of the really successful teams, there's typically been a long-standing relationship there between the crew chief and the driver. That's something I'm looking forward to in the future.

"Hey, no excuses. A lot of the places I've been have had good equipment and good people. But also, it's hard to get there overnight. I think a lot of people underestimate that. You see sometimes guys right away, they click. Once in a while that does happen. But more often than not it takes some time." (Continued)