Darlington Stripes

"The Lady in Black" continues to be "Too Tough to Tame" and the first Darlington stripe came barely five minutes into the first session. According to @NASCAR, Joey Logano was the first driver to get a stripe.
 
Our View Here is a ongoing list of who has scraped the wall so far:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (backup) and then he striped the backup as well. Practice 1
Clint Bowyer (backup) Practice 1
Scott Speed (backup) Practice 1
Greg Biffle (backup) Happy Hour
Joe Nemechek, hard crash (backup) Happy Hour
Casey Mears, hard crash (backup) Happy Hour
Marcos Ambrose, crash (backup) Happy Hour

Joey Logano Practice 1
Travis Kvapil Practice 1
Jamie McMurray Practice 1
Kyle Busch Happy Hour and qualification

Juan Montoya, very slight Practice 1
Kurt Busch, spin without contact Happy Hour

Darlington International Raceway 1950-1967



Darlington Raceway: 50th Anniversary

Almirola, Mears and Cook go home from Atlanta

Three drivers failed to make the Coca-Cola 600: Aric Almirola, Casey Mears and Terry Cook failed to find enough speed to qualify.

Our View Neither Mears nor Cook have made a single race this year.

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2009 Fantasy Rankings 24. Casey Mears

Fantasy Power Average*: 24.52
Wins: 0
Top-fives: 0
Top-10s: 4
Top-15s: 12

The economy may yet be the undoing of Casey Mears in 2010 and that is a shame because this mid-range driver was finally beginning to gel with his Richard Childress Racing team. Like most of the drivers from that stable, he had an up and down year, but starting with the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire, he showed remarkable consistency. In the final 10 races of the year, he finished on the lead lap eight times and improved his average finish by more than two positions over the first 26 events of the 2009 season.

Mears never cracked the top five and came close only twice with a sixth in the Michigan Carfax 400 in August and a seventh at Lowe's in October, which meant that he probably flew under the radar screen for most of the year. But he was often a good utility to driver that could be used to stretch your salary cap and allow you to load up on marquee drivers.

The best trait of Mears in 2009, however, was his ability to coax the car to the end of a race. He was one of only three drivers listed as running at the end of all 36 events alongside Juan Montoya and David Reutimann, so fantasy owners had a reasonable expectation that he would get every position out of the car that it was capable of giving.

*The Fantasy Power Average is a formula that consists of a driver's finishing result plus other intangibles such as average running position, laps in the top 10, speed in traffic and quality passes. Each intangible is "expressed" as a finishing position (e.g. the driver with the most laps in the top 10 is given a hypothetical first-place finish), so the lower the number, the greater the strength.

25. Joey Logano

Phoenix pit stall selections

Jayski has posted the pit stall selections, and as expected Martin Truex Jr. took the final slot before pit exit.

Our View Other drivers with an opening in front of them are Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne, so they should have an easy time exiting after their service. Drivers with openings behind them are Casey Mears, Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch and Mark Martin.

The other driver with a mathematical shot at leaving this race with the points' lead, Jeff Gordon is pitting directly behind Truex and if the No. 1 team has any trouble, he could inherit the best stall.

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Official tweets from the track

Mears quickest in Michigan Practice 2

Casey Mears posted the quickest average speed in Michigan's first Saturday session with a speed of 179.764 during five laps.

Our View Don't get overly excited about that position, however. Since he only ran five laps, there was not much opportunity for his speed to fall off.

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LifeLock 400 newsbreakers

Ganassi in no hurry to replace Truex

Chip Ganassi is in no hurry to replace Martin Truex Jr. now that he's been signed by MWR, according to Autosport.com. Ganassi said, "Martin made a business decision that he felt was in his best interest and we can't fault him for that."

Our View: The comment sounds eerily similar to ones he used with Jamie McMurray and Casey Mears left the Ganassi fold. One has to wonder how long this owner can keep losing talent without being seen only as a feeder for the superteams instead of a contender himself.

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171 winners

With his rain-aided victory, Joey Logano became the 171st driver to win a NASCAR Cup race. He joins a long list of active drivers with one win that includes David Reutimann, Juan Montoya, Martin Truex Jr., Brian Vickers, Casey Mears and Brad Keselowski.

Our View: Most of these victories were earned on specialty tracks such as the restrictor-plate superspeedways and road courses, or through pit strategy like the one employed by Logano, which shows just how difficult it is to handicap a NASCAR race.

However several highly productive drivers such as Jeff Gordon (tire) and Ryan Newman (rain-aided) were given their first victory by strategy.

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The Passing Grade

There is plenty of excitement on NASCAR road courses; you just have to know where to look.

Infineon Raceway is listed as an 11-turn course, but that is a little misleading. The modern NASCAR circuit skips turns five and six, which comprise an inner loop. This part of the track was used when the series first started visiting Sonoma, but designers decided that the stock cars would perform better if a chute was added to connect turns four and seven.

They were right. The twisty segment that is currently avoided acted a lot like the current esses, only with drivers reaching much faster speeds. Not a lot of passing went on in this segment, but during the last five years, 11 percent of the total passes for position have come in turn seven. Another 10 percent come in the segment of turns two, three and four, which is an uphill climb following the start/finish line, but most of these passes are actually made in the final corner numbered "four A."

The grandstands at Infineon are located between turns 11 and one, which also provides a great view of turn 10, and there is a good reason for that. Thirty-two percent of the total passes for position come in the turn 11-12 complex—otherwise known as the hairpin and kink onto the front stretch. Another 27 percent of the passing occurs in turn 10, which comes at the end of a long sweeping left hand corner that is the culmination of the backstretch esses. That will continue to be the action spots on Sunday.

Some road racing specialists, however, have shown they can pass anywhere. Only two percent of the total passes have been made in the backstretch esses. Tony Stewart has been the king of turns eight and nine. Of the total 158 passes that have been made in that section during the last four years, Stewart has completed seven percent of them. The next most productive driver in this segment might surprise fantasy owners, however. Casey Mears has six percent of those passes to his credit and no one else has more than four.

Of course, Mears has had more opportunities to pass overall than most of the leaders. Drivers like Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Juan Montoya spend most of their time in the front of the pack and therefore don't have to overtake as many cars. With an average of 49.3 passes per race during the last four events (which is when NASCAR Statistical Services started tracking this stat), he has made the 10th most passes per race.

So who has had to pass the most cars? Among drivers with more than one start, Denny Hamlin leads the league. He's completed 64.7 passes per race in the three events he's run at Infineon. He's passed a lot of cars and that will get his fans up on their feet, but it hasn't always landed him at the very front of the pack. Hamlin finished 12th in 2006, was 10th in 2007, but only 27th last year.

Total Passes at Infineon

Driver	Races	Total	Avg. per race	Avg. Fin	Turn 1	Turn 2-4
Regan Smith	1	73	73.0	30.0	7	6
David Stremme	1	67	67.0	32.0	6	2
Denny Hamlin	3	194	64.7	16.3	20	12
Michael Waltrip	3	184	61.3	23.3	28	22
Brian Vickers	3	174	58.0	20.7	12	14
David Ragan	2	115	57.5	26.5	10	7
Bobby Labonte	4	229	57.3	31.3	36	22
J.J. Yeley	2	114	57.0	27.0	16	8
Clint Bowyer	3	165	55.0	8.0	26	9
Jeremy Mayfield	2	107	53.5	14.5	20	10
Travis Kvapil	2	103	51.5	21.5	23	7
Casey Mears	4	197	49.3	18.0	38	15
Tony Stewart	4	189	47.3	11.3	30	41
Kevin Harvick	4	187	46.8	23.3	54	17
Matt Kenseth	4	187	46.8	17.5	27	21
Ron Fellows	4	185	46.3	22.3	22	16
Joe Nemechek	4	184	46.0	28.0	35	17
Terry Labonte	4	183	45.8	16.8	28	11
Reed Sorenson	2	91	45.5	34.5	11	7
Martin Truex Jr.	3	133	44.3	18.3	27	23
Carl Edwards	4	176	44.0	17.8	27	20
Chris Cook	1	44	44.0	28.0	10	4
Jeff Gordon	4	172	43.0	11.0	21	14
Dave Blaney	4	171	42.8	29.8	29	26
Greg Biffle	4	170	42.5	8.5	34	21
David Gilliland	3	127	42.3	19.7	19	8
Elliott Sadler	4	169	42.3	11.8	33	16
Robby Gordon	4	169	42.3	27.0	42	26
Bill Elliott	1	42	42.0	19.0	5	0
Juan Montoya	2	84	42.0	3.5	18	13
Michael McDowell	1	40	40.0	21.0	6	4
Jeff Burton	4	159	39.8	13.3	34	13
Kasey Kahne	4	158	39.5	32.0	29	8
Kyle Busch	4	157	39.3	15.0	37	18
Patrick Carpentier	1	39	39.0	23.0	7	2
Dale Earnhardt Jr.	4	152	38.0	23.3	39	12
Jimmie Johnson	4	151	37.8	19.5	25	21
Boris Said	4	145	36.3	19.0	14	14
Jamie McMurray	4	140	35.0	21.5	29	21
Ryan Newman	4	138	34.5	9.5	23	10
Paul Menard	1	33	33.0	34.0	3	5
Scott Riggs	2	65	32.5	25.5	18	10
Mark Martin	2	64	32.0	14.0	8	11
Sam Hornish Jr.	1	30	30.0	31.0	5	0
Kurt Busch	4	114	28.5	15.5	22	6
Aric Almirola	1	27	27.0	28.0	8	0
Brian Simo	2	54	27.0	26.5	8	2
Marcos Ambrose	1	25	25.0	42.0	2	3
AJ Allmendinger	1	24	24.0	37.0	2	2
Sterling Marlin	3	59	19.7	37.0	12	8
David Reutimann	1	19	19.0	40.0	5	1
Max Papis	1	19	19.0	35.0	3	1
Tom Hubert	2	34	17.0	43.0	9	6
Mike Bliss	1	12	12.0	39.0	4	1
Brandon Ash	1	6	6.0	38.0	1	3
Total		6,249			1,067	617
Percentage					17%	10%

Driver		Turn 7	Turn 8	Turn 9	Turn 10	Turn 11-12
Regan Smith		6	1	0	22	31
David Stremme		2	3	0	25	29
Denny Hamlin		27	3	2	70	60
Michael Waltrip		23	1	6	38	66
Brian Vickers		28	2	1	37	80
David Ragan		7	4	2	36	49
Bobby Labonte		31	2	2	61	75
J.J. Yeley		15	1	4	32	38
Clint Bowyer		30	1	2	47	50
Jeremy Mayfield		7	2	1	27	40
Travis Kvapil		5	0	1	37	30
Casey Mears		15	6	3	51	69
Tony Stewart		23	5	6	43	41
Kevin Harvick		25	1	0	29	61
Matt Kenseth		26	4	2	53	54
Ron Fellows		18	5	0	73	51
Joe Nemechek		14	2	2	50	64
Terry Labonte		14	1	3	54	72
Reed Sorenson		3	2	1	32	35
Martin Truex Jr.		9	0	3	31	40
Carl Edwards		20	2	3	59	45
Chris Cook		3	0	1	11	15
Jeff Gordon		31	0	3	49	54
Dave Blaney		20	0	1	40	55
Greg Biffle		14	0	3	48	50
David Gilliland		11	2	1	47	39
Elliott Sadler		18	3	0	45	54
Robby Gordon		18	2	2	31	48
Bill Elliott		6	1	1	20	9
Juan Montoya		12	5	0	15	21
Michael McDowell		4	0	1	7	18
Jeff Burton		15	2	1	42	52
Kasey Kahne		8	0	1	58	54
Kyle Busch		18	3	2	47	32
Patrick Carpentier		2	1	0	8	19
Dale Earnhardt Jr.		24	2	2	22	51
Jimmie Johnson		17	2	3	38	45
Boris Said		24	0	1	44	48
Jamie McMurray		20	1	1	27	41
Ryan Newman		16	0	1	43	45
Paul Menard		2	0	0	10	13
Scott Riggs		2	1	0	10	24
Mark Martin		12	0	1	16	16
Sam Hornish Jr.		1	0	0	8	16
Kurt Busch		23	1	2	25	35
Aric Almirola		1	0	2	5	11
Brian Simo		9	2	1	16	16
Marcos Ambrose		6	0	0	4	10
AJ Allmendinger		2	1	0	5	12
Sterling Marlin		13	2	1	12	11
David Reutimann		0	0	1	5	7
Max Papis		1	0	0	5	9
Tom Hubert		2	1	1	6	9
Mike Bliss		2	0	0	2	3
Brandon Ash		0	0	0	0	2
Total		705	80	78	1,678	2,024
Percentage		11%	1%	1%	27%	32%

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Mears scrapes Michigan wall in mirror incident

Casey Mears scraped the wall in an incident that was almost identical to David Reutimann's. His accident happened on his first lap of practice as well.

Our View: The drivers are on full kill from the time they leave the garage. They may want to scale back to 95%.

See also: Reutimann scrapes wall at Michigan

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Busch says no rivalry with Earnhardt

Where Kyle Busch is concerned, the media is making a big deal out of nothing in terms of a budding rivalry between himself and Dale Earnhardt Jr., according to SceneDaily.com.

Our View: "Some of the media trying to build up stuff like that," said Busch. "To me, I've got no issues with Dale Jr. whatsoever. It wasn't him that kicked me out of Hendrick Motorsports, to be honest with you. It was Casey Mears."

Hey… maybe there's a budding rivalry between Busch and Mears.

Mears wants to return to Lowe's victory lane

Two years after Casey Mears earned a surprising win at Lowe's in the 2007 Coke 600, he would like to contend for another victory, according to SceneDaily.com.

Our View: Hope springs eternal, but that victory is his only top-10 in the last three years at Lowe's and during that span his average finish is only slightly better than 20th.

Harvick, Mears swap pays dividends

The crew swap between Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears is already paying dividends, according to NASCAR.com.

Our View: You couldn't tell by Harvick's result, but he had one of his best runs of the year at Richmond before contact with Sam Hornish Jr. cut his tire and sent him hard into the wall. Mears was doing fine before the swap with several finishes in the teens, but he recorded his first top-10 of the season with a ninth in the Crown Royal 400.

Harvick has longest Richmond Top-10 streak

Kevin Harvick enters the weekend with the longest top-10 streak among active drivers. He's finished that well in eight consecutive races and garnered an average finish of sixth.

Our View: If RCR's crew swap between him and Casey Mears is going to work, it should start to show dividends right away. And if Harvick cannot be successful this weekend at Richmond, there is very little hope for the immediate future. It is probably safe to start him this week, but if he stumbles, then approach the No. 29 with caution for the next few weeks.