NASCAR Cup

Phoenix: Casey Mears race report

PHOENIX, Az. (November 2, 2003) --- Casey Mears was rounding the bases on Friday. He qualified in the top-10 for the Winston Cup and Busch Series races at Phoenix International Raceway. Saturday, Team Target got a strike when Mears finished the ...

Published: Nov 5, 2003, 11:20 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

PHOENIX, Az. (November 2, 2003) --- Casey Mears was rounding the bases on Friday. He qualified in the top-10 for the Winston Cup and Busch Series races at Phoenix International Raceway.

Saturday, Team Target got a strike when Mears finished the Busch race in 21st position due to an ill-handling car.

On Sunday, the team found two more strikes to put them on the bench early. From the start of the race, Mears fell back through the field. He felt a major vibration on lap 109. Finally, on lap 119, Mears lost the motor in his No. 41 Dodge. He took the car to the garage and ended his day in 42nd position.

"We weren't running near as good as I thought we might have been," Mears said following his engine failure. "At the beginning of the race it was super-tight. I was way, way tight. We're trying a couple of new things in the motor. We're a little down in the points so we tried a few things and it didn't wind up living but they're working real hard at trying to make some more power. I'm glad we're trying some things new. It's just too bad it didn't make it to the end."

Mears dropped one position to 35th in NASCAR Winston Cup Championship points. Ganassi teammates Sterling Marlin and Jamie McMurray finished the race back to back in 11th and 12th places.

Team Target races at North Carolina Speedway next weekend. The Target House 200 Busch Series race will be broadcast live this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. ET on TNT television and MRN radio. The Pop Secret 400 Winston Cup race will be broadcast live this Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET on the same stations.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Phoenix: Tony Stewart race report

Next article Dodge This - Casey Mears press conference

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Honda Racing US echoes Porsche urgency over unified 2030 rules framework

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 8 min

Honda Racing US echoes Porsche urgency over unified 2030 rules framework

Toto Wolff: Two sponsors left Mercedes after promoting Kimi Antonelli into F1

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

24 min

Toto Wolff: Two sponsors left Mercedes after promoting Kimi Antonelli into F1

Winners and losers from the penultimate round of 2026 NASCAR Cup season at Martinsville

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Martinsville II

33 min

Winners and losers from the penultimate round of 2026 NASCAR Cup season at Martinsville

Cadillac to investigate high-speed Mexico GP failure that led to angry Valtteri Bottas reaction

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

38 min

Cadillac to investigate high-speed Mexico GP failure that led to angry Valtteri Bottas reaction

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts