Despite early Duels exit, Mears makes Daytona 500

Mears was among the biggest names in limbo for the 43-car field in Sunday’s Great American Race (1 p.m. ET, FOX), the season opener for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Engine failure after just 17 laps in the opening 60-lap race sidelined the 36-year-old veteran, who finished 26th in last year’s final standings.

“I don’t have any thoughts right now other than everything’s bad,” a dejected Mears said after his early exit. “The nature of this place has been really good to us in the past, and obviously when something like this happens you just feel so helpless. It’s really out of your control. You want a fighting chance.”

Those left on the outside of the elite group of 43: Alex Bowman, Jeb Burton, Ron Hornaday Jr., Justin Marks, Brian Scott and Josh Wise — each of whom endured their own brand of heartache on a cold Thursday night in Florida.

After the first race, Mears joined AJ Allmendinger, Johnny Sauter and others in tense moments of scoreboard-watching in the second Duel race, waiting to see if their body of work in Speedweeks would be enough to make the main event.

Allmendinger, a qualifier for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs last year, wound up with enough stature in the team owner points to advance; Sauter — 12th in Sunday’s qualifying (after Hamlin’s time was disallowed), but with a team 41st in owner points last season — made the race on the basis of his qualifying speed.

WATCH: Sauter, Allmendinger involved in wreck

Mears was mired in the thick of a dense pack with the opening 60-lap qualifier barely a quarter of the way in, riding the high line in hopes of clinching a starting berth. Just past the start-finish line, the engine in the Germain Racing No. 13 Chevrolet went south with a hole in the oil pan, the car smoking steadily as he lost power.

By the time the car was pushed back to the garage, Mears seemed resigned to going home early though two-thirds of the race remained. He wound up with a last-place result in the 25-car field. With just a 28th-fastest lap from last Sunday’s qualifying and the team’s 26th-place position in the 2014 standings to fall back on, it was close to not being enough.

“There’s so many things that are so cool about this race track, yet there’s so many things that are out of your control,” Mears said. “When we have something like this happen, it’s difficult any way it happens. It doesn’t look good, obviously. I’m guessing we’re going home unless something major happens in the second race or something happens in this one. I don’t even know what to say. It just rips your heart out.

“We’re so good at these places, yet these are the places that anything can happen, and anything happened tonight.”

Sauter took the worst of his collision with Allmendinger in the 2.5-mile track’s trioval, despite taking it easy in the first half of the race.

“I just was riding along on the top side there, just trying to mind my own business,” Sauter said. “We were in a tight spot there going back to qualifying, if you’re in on speed or not. We deliberated about it all week, just do we try to be conservative, do we try to race. I thought I was doing everything right, just hanging out in the top groove.”

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