Mears does what uncle couldn't do

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The first call on Casey Mears' cell phone Sunday afternoon was from his famous uncle, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears. It's a call he has wanted his entire life.

For once, Casey Mears accomplished something his uncle never did - a victory in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

Mears, along with IRL drivers Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon, found a way to dominate the sports car race at Daytona International Speedway despite plenty of problems with their Lexus-powered Riley prototype.

They made two trips to the garage area for repairs and several stops on pit road, but they still found a way to beat the Lexus-Riley of Oswaldo Negri, Mark Patterson, A.J. Allmendinger and Justin Wilson by a full lap on the 3.54-mile road course.

"I hadn't even thought about what I'm going to say to my uncle," Mears said after accepting his first-place Rolex in Victory Lane. "He's called my father's cell phone. Everyone in the family's called."

Not only did Mears add his name to sports car history, he became the first full-time driver from the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series to win the biggest sport car race in the country.

"There are only a few big races in the world and this is one of them," he said. "I can't believe we won this race. But if it wasn't for the guys behind the wall, we couldn't have done it.

"Now I'll have something to rub in (Tony Stewart's) face at the next driver's meeting."

The winning car made unscheduled stops to repair the brakes, gear box and engine belts. The car lost a brake pad in the first six hours, sending Dixon through the infield grass.

While the problems were time-consuming, they were minor compared to everyone else.

"It kept happening and happening, and we felt like we'd slip out of the lead," Dixon said. "But everybody else had issues."

Wheldon, the defending Indianapolis 500 and IRL champion, said the race was won by the pit crew.

"Two trips to the garage, I'm still amazed by how quick they made the changes," Wheldon said.

"They did some things through the night that made it possible."

The winning car led the final 5 hours, 33 minutes. It covered 734 laps - 2,598.4 miles - or about the distance from Daytona Beach to Los Angeles.