PREVIEW: CASEY MEARS (NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET)

MEARS AT FONTANA: Casey Mears will make his 10th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start at California Speedway on Sunday. In his nine previous starts at the track, he has earned two top-10 finishes. His most recent top-10 finish was in 2006. Last year, in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports, Mears led a lap for the first time at the Fontana, Calif., track.

HOMETOWN BOY: Mears is a native of Bakersfield, Calif., which is roughly 155 miles northwest of the California Speedway. He started his career racing BMX bicycles and all-terrain vehicles before transitioning to go-karts. The son of off-road racing legend Roger Mears and nephew of four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears, Casey Mears progressed through open-wheel racing before moving to NASCAR in 2002. Now in his sixth season, he has won once and recorded 11 top-five finishes and 36 top-10s. He has won three pole positions.

FAMILY AFFAIR: The Mears family has raced in California for decades. It started with Mears' father, Roger, who competed in Indy Cars at the old Ontario Motor Speedway twice before the California track closed in 1980. Roger Mears' brother, Rick, also raced open-wheel cars at Ontario. Clint Mears, Rick's son, won an Indy Lights Series race from the pole position in 1997 at California Speedway. Prior to starting his NASCAR career, Casey Mears also competed at California Speedway four times in the Indy Lights Series, posting one top-five finish in 2000.

NO. 5 AT CALIFORNIA: The No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg's team won at California Speedway in September 2005. The win was the first for Alan Gustafson as crew chief of the team. The No. 5 team also earned the California pole, its first ever at the track, in February that year. In the past six races at the Fontana venue, the No. 5 Chevy has recorded two top-five finishes and five top-10s.

CALIFORNIA CHASSIS: Gustafson chose Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 479 for Sunday's race. The chassis was used during testing at the speedway on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, but this will be the first time it is used during a race.

HENDRICK AT CALIFORNIA: Team owner Rick Hendrick has recorded six Sprint Cup race wins at California Speedway -- more than any other owner. Hendrick's last win was by Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet, on Sept. 2, 2007. The track has hosted 15 Sprint Cup events since its inaugural race in 1997.

QUICK TURNAROUND: After Sunday's race at California Speedway, transporter drivers Dean Mozingo and Jimmy Parrott will leave the Fontana track and head to Las Vegas to meet Mike Belden. Belden will drive his transporter roughly 5,000 miles to move the No. 5 and No. 88 primary cars from Charlotte, N.C., to Las Vegas for the March 2 race. This is the first time that the Sprint Cup Series is holding back-to-back races on the West Coast.

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AUTOGRAPHS: Casey Mears will greet fans and sign autographs at the Kellogg's/CARQUEST souvenir trailer on Sunday at 9:40 a.m. PT.

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CASEY MEARS, DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON GOING BACK HOME TO CALIFORNIA.): "I love going back to California. Actually, I love getting back to the West Coast as much as possible. A lot of my family lives out there, so it's a good time for me to see everyone and just kind of chill out. They all go out to my motorcoach in the evenings, and we just hang out like it's a normal night."

MEARS (ON THE INFLUENCE HIS FAMILY HAS HAD ON HIS RACING DECISIONS.): "My dad is really so important to me. He's been there through all of my racing, since I was a kid. When I moved to NASCAR, he became my motorcoach driver. So I'm really used to seeing my dad on race days and as soon as I get out of that race car. It's a little different this year, because he's not coming every weekend, but we still talk on the phone all the time. I try to make it like he's here. My Uncle Rick is really who I look up to and want to be like. He was just always thought of as a good guy (when he was racing). He didn't act like someone he wasn't. He didn't need to be in the spotlight all the time. He just raced hard and treated everyone with respect."

MEARS (ON HIS WEST COAST HOBBIES.): "I love the sand dunes. I know I talk about it all the time, but really that's where I want to be during any time off that we have. I got a new sand car last winter, and I've really been working on that. We take a motorcoach out there and just ride all day. There's no one telling you where to go, or to stop here, or go here, or slow down, or whatever. There's no road signs, no street lights. You really can do whatever you want. I guess I kind of recharge out there. Next week, I'm taking a couple of rookies, including my crew chief Alan (Gustafson), out there with me. We'll see how they do."

ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON HAVING DIFFICULTY TURNING DURING TESTING AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY.): "California Speedway doesn't have much banking at all so that makes it even harder to figure out the handling and get these new cars to turn than it is at tracks like Las Vegas or Atlanta. With less banking, the cars seem to handle worse. The tight handling is a tough issue to overcome on non-banked tracks."

GUSTAFSON (ON HOW THE TEAM WILL COMBAT THE TIGHT HANDLING THIS WEEKEND.): "Well, when we tested out there, we learned a lot. We came back to the shop and kept working on it. The engineers got on it. We went to the seven-post with it. It's an issue that we'll have to try to overcome in different ways than aerodynamically."

GUSTAFSON (ON IF THIS IS AN ISSUE AFFECTING ALL TEAMS.): "This is inherent to the new car. Certain teams will do a better job of dealing with it and getting the car to handle better. But we've been told from day one, when the first COT (Car of Tomorrow) was tested, that they just don't want to turn."

DEAN MOZINGO, TRANSPORTER DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON THE TURNAROUND FOLLOWING THE RACE AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY.): "Working at Hendrick Motorsports, we have good resources and good people that make a turnaround like this easy. It's really hard on the single-car teams and even multiple-car teams that don't have the resources that we do. We worked hard to get everything in order. It's not too bad of a deal, really. I just hate being gone from home that long."

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Hendrick Motorsports Media: http://media.teamhendrick.com

Casey Mears: http://www.MearsGang.com

Kellogg's Racing: http://www.kelloggsracing.com

CARQUEST: http://www.CARQUEST.com

Chevy Racing Media: http://media.gm.com

NASCAR Media: http://www.nascarmedia.com