DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Casey Mears spun on pit road, got briefly stuck in the infield grass and missed a last-lap crash by mere inches. After all that, he finished eighth a qualifying race Thursday night for the Daytona 500, good enough to get him into “The Great American Race.”
Mears choked back tears three separate times after squeezing into the 41-car field as the highest-finishing “open” car in the first of two 150-mile qualifying races.
“I was worried when we got stuck. I was worried about going two laps down,” Mears said. “Actually got on the radio and asked all the guys to stay calm, said, ‘We still got a shot here.’ For sure when we were sitting in the grass, that wasn’t pretty.
“I can’t believe it. After all that, being sitting in position to go race the Daytona 500 on Sunday, pretty much the whole race I was thinking that was out of our grasp.”
Anthony Alfredo initially earned the final spot in the starting lineup in the second qualifier, but NASCAR disqualified his car and the berth went to B.J. McLeod.
Joey Logano of Team Penske won the first race and Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports took the second. Both were already assured of spots in NASCAR’s season opener and will start on the second row Sunday.
Mears is driving for Garage 66, a team owned by former driver Carl Long with just 10 employees on hand in Daytona. The 47-year-old driver is in pursuit of 500 career Cup Series starts and received financial assistance from former NASCAR team owner Bob Germain to enter Daytona.
Mears, who last competed full-time in 2016, will make his 495th start Sunday. With his fate uncertain, his wife and 14-year-old son booked two separate plane tickets from their home in Phoenix. His daughter has a cheerleading competition in Las Vegas, and they were either headed to see her or to Florida to watch Mears in the Daytona 500.
“Couldn’t be happier they’re taking that flight to Orlando. Gosh, dang, man, got choked up. It means a lot,” he said. “It just means a lot. Especially now, you know what I mean? My kids were younger when I was racing. Even before I started doing this this last year, I’d asked my son about, ‘Do you remember this or that?’ He didn’t remember. He was young.
“To come back and do it now, my kids, the ages they’re at, they understand what dad did for a living is cool.”
Like Mears, Alfredo was also in tears after making the Daytona 500 for what he thought was the third time in his career. He missed the race last year.
“My career is a lot of ups and downs and you never know when you will get another shot to race on any Sunday, especially the Daytona 500, the Great American Race,” Alfredo said. “Missing it last year has haunted me until this very moment. This is the only thing that could pull that black cloud over.”
His joy was short-lived as NASCAR announced the Beard Motorsports entry was disqualified because the transaxle cooling hose wasn't properly attached in post-race inspection.
“It's unfortunate to be here. Any small, open team we don’t like to have these problems,” Cup Series director Brad Moran said. “But we do have to do our job, make sure there’s parity amongst the field and also parity amongst people trying to make the 500.”
Logano won the first Daytona 500 qualifying race when a crash in overtime cost Corey LaJoie the spot that went to Mears.
Logano in a Ford for Team Penske had control of the race when a caution for a five-car accident with four laps remaining brought out the yellow. Logano had the lead on the restart for the two-lap sprint to the finish and wasn’t challenged before the final crash ended LaJoie’s hopes and gave Logano his fourth victory in a Daytona qualifying race.
Logano is a three-time Cup champion who won the Daytona 500 in 2015.
“I do think we have a strong race car, obviously a fast race car, we proved that,” Logano said. “There’s definitely some things I want to work on, no doubt. It’s always like that. We have to have speed. We’ll work on some handling pieces, but I feel like we’re pretty close.”
Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion, has won a qualifying race three times now.
“A great way to get the blood pumping for sure on a Thursday night,” Elliott said. "Nice to get the NAPA Chevy a win. Not a 500. I’ve been here before and not the other one, so you have to kind of learn to take it a day at a time.
“A great way to start the speed week for our team. Proud of our effort, everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, the boss, from top to bottom. Good night. Looking forward to Sunday.”
The four drivers who failed to qualify for the 41-car field were Alfredo, LaJoie, Chandler Smith and JJ Yeley. Two spots were earned in Wednesday night's time trials and went to Justin Allgaier and Corey Heim.
Kyle Busch won the pole in time trials as he attempts to win his first Daytona 500 in 21 starts.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
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