{"id":79577,"date":"2025-08-18T20:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/79577\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T20:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:56:07","slug":"casey-mears-to-return-for-nascar-cup-race-at-daytona-with-garage-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/79577\/","title":{"rendered":"Casey Mears to Return For NASCAR Cup Race at Daytona With Garage 66"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casey Mears, who hadn\u2019t started a NASCAR Cup Series race since 2019 before returning to the series with Garage 66 at Martinsville Speedway in the Spring, is chasing 500 career starts in the NASCAR Cup Series. By this time next week, he\u2019ll be just nine races shy of that milestone as he is set to compete in Saturday\u2019s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n

Mears, 47, will once again slide behind the wheel of the No. 66 Garage 66 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. This time, he\u2019ll have primary sponsorship from S.I. Yachts, one of the world\u2019s oldest and largest dealers for Viking Yachts and Valhalla Boatworks.<\/p>\n

The native of Bakersfield, California, who won the Coca-Cola 600 in 2007, is excited to return to the 2.5-mile superspeedway in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to have this opportunity to return to one of my favorite tracks, and I\u2019m grateful to S.I. Yachts and Acrisure for their support, and to Carl Long for putting me in his car,\u201d Mears said in a team press release<\/a>. \u201cMy relationship with Bob Germain and the Germain family is special to me, so it\u2019s only appropriate for us to return to Daytona, a track where we\u2019ve had a lot of success together and share many special memories. I\u2019m also appreciative of Acrisure\u2019s continued partnership. I\u2019ve enjoyed the relationship we\u2019ve built, and I look forward to our continued collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carl Long, who owns the Garage 66 team, couldn\u2019t be happier to once again field a car for Mears, and the team owner says he has secured a Roush-Yates engine as well as a top-tier pit crew to give Mears the best chance to compete for a solid finish on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad we could put this partnership together, and we\u2019re excited to have Casey in our car at Daytona,\u201d Long said. \u201cWe secured a Roush Yates engine and a quality pit crew, so we\u2019re looking forward to hitting the track. We appreciate the support of S.I. Yachts and Acrisure, and it means a lot to have the Germain family\u2019s backing. The Germain family has a storied history in NASCAR, with two NASCAR Truck Series Championships and a Cup Series team that spanned 12 years, so I\u2019m honored to have them on board with us this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

S.I. Yachts is happy to play a hand in Mears\u2019 quest for 500 career NASCAR Cup Series starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited to support Casey as he aims to surpass the 500-start milestone, and we\u2019re thrilled to reconnect with him in NASCAR,\u201d said Zach Germain, CEO of S.I. Yachts. \u201cCasey is a person of high character who aligns perfectly with our commitment to delivering high-quality, premium boats along with top-tier customer service. We\u2019re dedicated to helping people create memories on the water, and we\u2019re excited to help Casey make memories on the track.\u201d He continued, \u201cI got my enthusiasm for fishing and boating from my Uncle Bob Germain, and it\u2019s an honor to be a Viking and Valhalla dealer because of our shared passion and the memories we\u2019ve created over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 490 NASCAR Cup Series starts, Mears has one win, 13 top-five finishes, and 51 top-10s. The driver finished a career-best 14th in the championship standings in 2006, and finished 35th in his first race back since 2019 earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casey Mears, who hadn\u2019t started a NASCAR Cup Series race since 2019 before returning to the series with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[975,49,48,48152,48153,29787,2884,48154,634,8354,48155,82],"class_list":["post-79577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-975","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carl-long","tag-casey-mears","tag-coke-zero-sugar-400","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-garage-66","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-s-i-yachts","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}