Mears soft-pedals to win

A Mears in Victory Lane on Memorial Day weekend. It’s a familiar portrait, except this time -- for the first time -- it was Casey Mears in a Nextel Cup race.

After more than four years of trying to win in NASCAR’s top series, Mears and his Hendrick Motorsports team gambled on fuel strategy and won the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in front of 175,000.

Mears, 29, conserved fuel and then inherited the lead when teammate Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart of Joe Gibbs Racing and other contenders were forced to pit for a splash of gas with only a few laps left in NASCAR’s longest race.

Mears’ Chevrolet also ran out of fuel -- a lap after he crossed the finish line.

“I just had a 10,000-pound gorilla jump off my back,” Mears said. “This win is huge. I can’t hardly talk right now because I’m so happy.”

Mears is a member of the famed Mears racing family of Bakersfield. His father is off-road racing champion Roger Mears and his uncle is Rick Mears, four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500.

Casey Mears, too, started in open-wheel racing but shifted to stock cars. Coincidentally, his first Cup win came on the same day as the Indy 500.

The win extended Hendrick’s early domination of the Cup series. Led by reigning Cup champion Johnson and current points leader Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Chevrolets have won the last five races and nine of 12 this year.

The fuel situation at the end, combined with two major wrecks early in the race, produced other unexpected top finishers.

Stewart teammate J.J. Yeley finished second, his best finish since joining the Cup series full-time last year. And veteran Kyle Petty, 46, finished third in a Petty Enterprises Dodge -- his first top-five finish in a decade.

Brian Vickers and Jeremy Mayfield gave Toyota its best race so far in the manufacturer’s first year in the Cup series.

Vickers led 76 laps for Team Red Bull and finished fifth. Until Sunday, Toyota had only one other top-10 finish, a 10th that Vickers scored at the California Speedway in February.

Mayfield, a Bill Davis Racing driver making only his fourth start this year, also briefly led before fading to 25th. All seven Toyotas in the series had led only a combined 14 laps until Sunday.

Accidents on the 1.5-mile Lowe’s oval damaged the cars of several top contenders -- including Gordon -- early in the grueling, 400-lap race.

After a late-afternoon start on a hot, muggy day, Johnson’s Chevy triggered a 13-car pileup in the first turn on Lap 53.

The tread tore off Johnson’s left rear tire and Johnson -- a five-time winner at Lowe’s -- slowed abruptly, causing the field behind him to crumple like an accordion.

Those collected included Juan Pablo Montoya of the Chip Ganassi team and Kevin Harvick, who won the Nextel All-Star Challenge here a week ago for Richard Childress Racing.

“I saw a car flying, and as soon as I saw the car flying I checked up” and got hit by another car, said Montoya, another former Indy 500 winner and Formula One driver who moved to the Cup series this year. “Welcome to NASCAR, I guess.”

After the restart, another big crash occurred in front of the main grandstands that involved Gordon, a four-time winner here.

Tony Raines of Hall of Fame Racing tapped Gordon’s No. 24 Chevy, pushing Gordon into an oncoming A.J. Allmendinger of the Red Bull team. That caused Gordon’s car to slam head first into the wall and then become partially airborne before it stopped on the infield grass.

“It looked a lot worse than it really was,” said Gordon, who was not hurt and had charged to the top 10 after starting 32nd in the 43-car field. “Unfortunate because, man, what an awesome race car we had.”

Even before the race was half over and the sun set on suburban Charlotte, only 14 cars remained on the lead lap. But Mears consistently ran in the top 10 until his fuel strategy paid off.

Hendrick recruited Mears this year to fill the vacancy left when Vickers moved to Red Bull, even though Mears had posted only four top-five finishes in three years with Ganassi’s team.

Being with the top-tier Hendrick team raised pressure on Mears to win his first Cup race, but owner Rick Hendrick said he never doubted Mears’ ability.

Hendrick, whose team headquarters is less than a mile from the speedway, said: “This was special, winning at Charlotte.”

james.peltz@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Coca-Cola 600

Results of Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. (pole position in parentheses):

1. (16) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 400 laps

2. (12) J.J. Yeley, Chevrolet, 400

3. (36) Kyle Petty, Dodge, 400

4. (34) Reed Sorenson, Dodge, 400

5. (26) Brian Vickers, Toyota, 400

6. (14) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 400

7. (7) Ricky Rudd, Ford, 400

8. (4) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 400

9. (6) Denny Hamlin, Chevrolet, 400

10. (21) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 400

11. (11) Mark Martin, Chevrolet, 400

12. (5) Matt Kenseth, Ford, 400

13. (9) Bobby Labonte, Dodge, 399

14. (37) Tony Raines, Chevrolet, 399

15. (39) Carl Edwards, Ford, 399

16. (31) Martin Truex Jr., Chevrolet, 399

17. (10) David Stremme, Dodge, 397

18. (8) Dave Blaney, Toyota, 397

19. (28) Jamie McMurray, Ford, 395

20. (15) Scott Riggs, Dodge, 394

21. (27) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 394

22. (35) Robby Gordon, Ford, 393

23. (18) Kasey Kahne, Dodge, 390

24. (25) Jeff Burton, Chevrolet, 385

25. (24) Jeremy Mayfield, Toyota, a-382

26. (33) Joe Nemechek, Chevrolet, 377

27. (40) Johnny Sauter, Chevrolet, 376

28. (20) Juan Pablo Montoya, Dodge, 369

29. (41) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 367

30. (17) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 357

31. (29) AJ Allmendinger, Toyota, 310

32. (2) Kurt Busch, Dodge, b-296

33. (30) Sterling Marlin, Chevrolet, 293

34. (43) Kenny Wallace, Chevrolet, a-289

35. (19) David Gilliland, Ford, 265

36. (3) Elliott Sadler, Dodge, 261

37. (13) David Ragan, Ford, b-219

38. (22) Bill Elliott, Ford, b-218

39. (1) Ryan Newman, Dodge, a-172

40. (23) Dale Jarrett, Toyota, a-82

41. (32) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, b-61

42. (42) Jeff Green, Chevrolet, b-52

43. (38) Greg Biffle, Ford, b-45

a -- engine failure

b -- accident