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."

Perhaps the most notable exception is his predecessor, Busch, who is tearing it up in his first few months with Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 18 team. But so many of the great drivers in NASCAR have benefited from long-term relationships with crew chiefs -- think Stewart and Greg Zipadelli, Johnson and Chad Knaus, Gordon and Ray Evernham, Matt Kenseth and Robbie Reiser, Mark Martin and Jimmy Fennig. Even Earnhardt Jr. came to Hendrick with Tony Eury Jr., who was on the box for Little E during many seasons at Dale Earnhardt Inc.

"It is helpful," Johnson said. "Before I got to the Cup level, I had driven for a lot of different teams, and it was mainly because I was climbing the ladder trying to get to this level. I was really with only one team for two years at a time. From Year 1 to Year 2, it was such a different feeling inside the race shop -- communication, confidence in myself and the team. I can only hope and wish for Casey that he can have that and have this team stay together.

Just one race

Last season's Coca-Cola 600 had a surprise top-five with Casey Mears winning followed by J.J. Yeley, Kyle Petty, Reed Sorenson and Brian Vickers. David Caraviello looks at where those top-five finishers have gone since -- and it's not pretty.

• Complete story, click here

"Granted, he stayed at Hendrick from last year to this year, but a complete turnaround in crew and people. I think they've done a good job. They've had some things not work out for them luck-wise and some misfortune, but I really see them gaining the confidence they need and turning the corner and getting things going."

That hasn't happened yet. Mears left Darlington 27th in the standings, a distant 266 points out of the Chase he still believes he can make. He was running in the top 20 there until he lost a tire, and plummeted to a 35th-place finish. That's the way it's gone this season for Mears, who was derailed from the start with a blown tire at Daytona and a weeper-induced spin at California that led to respective finishes of 36th and 42nd. Where would he be without those? "It would give us 200 more points, and we'd be right there at it," he said. "You finish 20th or better, and you get 200 points. Those two DNFs really killed us. I think those two races alone put us right in the hunt, in the mix of things."

He's dealt with another challenge as well, one not found on the racetrack. Statistically, Mears and that No. 25 team seemed to building something late last year, following the Coca-Cola 600 victory with eight more finishes of 15th or better. But the opportunity to land Earnhardt doesn't come along very often. Mears may have not lost his job in the ensuing shuffle, but he did lose a team he felt he was finally bonding with.

"I think sometimes it takes time to get going, and people underestimate that," he said. "I think definitely toward the end of last year, things were feeling a lot more comfortable with the group that I was with, and we were starting to understand and really make some progress. But this 5 team is the best team I've ever been a part of. It just takes time to get everybody on the same page. For sure, at the beginning of the year, it was maybe a little bit of a disadvantage just never having worked together. But at the same time, it's such a good group of guys, and I know in the future we're going to be really good."

But bonding only goes so far. Eventually, a driver has to take advantage of the situation he's in.

"It's tough, but this is a tough sport, and some people get one opportunity," Gordon said. "All I can say is Casey's obviously done something right along the way or he wouldn't still be here and he wouldn't be in the position he's at and have a ride at Hendrick Motorsports. Timing is everything and circumstances, how they fall together, can make or break your career. Unfortunately for Casey, he hasn't been able to get himself into a more stable situation and really build on it. And I hate that for Casey. But it happens to a lot of people.

"I agree that my circumstances worked out very well, and Jimmie's, and other guys' that have had success to that level. That's certainly a common denominator. But I've seen a lot of guys in the garage area fight and claw and do a lot of things to go through those situations, and some of them have to go through that before they get the success. But I think that it's something you hope for a guy."

All Mears can do is plug along, building on his relationship with crew chief Alan Gustafson and the rest of the No. 5 team. The trophy from the Coca-Cola 600 sits in his bedroom, waiting for a more appropriate place in the new home Mears is building. Sure, going back to Charlotte is special. But he'd rather look ahead than behind. He's not worried about Stewart, or any other big name out there. After his dreadful start, he called car owner Rick Hendrick to apologize, and heard nothing but support on the other end.

"I said, 'I'm frustrated with where we're at in the points, I know we're better than this. We want to do well for you,'" Mears said. "He said, 'hey, don't even worry about it, we're in this deal for the long haul.' I guess I feel real good about where we're going for the future and what's going on there. I just hope everybody else can wrap their arms around that, too."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer