As the second half of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season gets in full swing, Casey Mears and his GEICO Racing team pulled into Pocono looking to rebound from tough races in New Hampshire and Indianapolis. They proved that short-term memory is most effective as they turned their back on the past and reached for what was ahead when track activities got underway on Friday.
When the weekend’s opening practice session came to a close, Mears and his No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet SS rested 24th on the board. They later matched that effort in qualifying when Mears paced the Tricky Triangle in just 50.26-seconds, at a speed of 179.069-miles per hour.
Rain threatened on race day, but never developed. When the green flag set the field underway on Sunday afternoon, Mears quickly charged from the 24th position, moving up ten spots to 14th by lap 12. The GEICO Chevy was in the top 5 before having to dive down pit road for a scheduled green flag pit stop on lap 44. Aside from a bad vibration that would later subside, and the narrow miss of crashing racecars, Mears’ day was smooth and his No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet was strong all afternoon. When the checkered flag halted racing action at Pocono Raceway, Mears scored a 12th place finish, picking up 12 spots from his starting position and handing GEICO and Germain Racing their seventh top-15 finish of the 2014 season. Mears’ effort also resulted in a two-position jump in the point standings, bumping him up to 24th as he departed Pocono.
“We had a solid day and everyone on the GEICO team did a nice job and Bootie (Barker, crew chief) made some good calls that put us in position to have a strong finish,” Mears said after climbing from his GEICO machine. “After two bad races, this is exactly the type of finish we needed. We were strong all day and it felt good to run up front and be competitive. Hopefully, we can keep the momentum rolling at Watkins Glen next week. We appreciate the support of GEICO, KMC Wheels, Castrol and all of our partners.”
Mears and the GEICO team will now travel to upstate New York for the season’s final road course race. A year ago, the Germain Racing team exited Watkins Glen with a 12th place finish after starting 30th.
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