After Casey Mears’ full-time NASCAR career ended in 2017, he returned to his roots in off-road racing. While things have been going smoothly for him in the desert, he’s also only 11 starts away from hitting 500 career Cup Series races.

Carl Long has decided to help out by hiring Mears to drive Garage 66’s #66 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. His first race for the team will be at Martinsville Speedway on March 30, over six years since his last Cup appearance at the 2019 Daytona 500. If he can make ten more races after that, he’ll be the 48th person to join the 500 Start Club.

Mears was a NASCAR mainstay for over two decades, doing full-time Cup competition from 2003 to 2016 with the exception of a journeyman 2010 season. While mainly a midpack driver, he notched his lone Cup win at the 2007 Coca-Cola 600 and has also won in what is now the Xfinity Series.

Germain Racing, a team he had helped develop since the second half of the 2010 season, replaced him with Ty Dillon for 2017. Besides a part-time Xfinity schedule that year, Mears decided to follow his family’s tracks in the off-road world by doing the Stadium Super Trucks’ Race & Rock SST World Championship at Lake Elsinore. He continued to make sporadic appearances in SST throughout 2018 and 2019, dominating and finishing second in Race #1 of the second 2019 Mid-Ohio weekend.

He went deeper into the off-road rabbit hole in 2019. After making his latest NASCAR start to date at Daytona, wherein he finished last due to a crash, Mears dabbled in desert races like the Mexican 1000 and Baja 1000. At the Mexican 1000, Mears filled in for his father Roger as one of the drivers of a Chenowth DR2 alongside Rory Chenowth and Tim Cowle, where they finished third overall and won the Vintage 4-Cylinder Buggies category. At the Baja 1000, he and Doug Fortin Jr. raced an Axalta-backed Geiser Trophy Truck to a 12th in class.

Mears and SST boss Robby Gordon teamed up for the 2021 Baja 1000, where their truck placed seventh in TT. Since 2023, he has been part of fellow NASCAR alumnus Brendan Gaughan’s Class 1 team for the 1000, where they shared the car with Buddy Feldkamp. The #162 team finished third at the latest Baja 1000 in November.

Roger Mears is an Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee with 20 SCORE titles at Riverside and victories in events like the Baja 1000 and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. His brother Rick Mears is a four-time Indianapolis 500 champion who’s done Baja alongside Roger too. Through his family lineage, the younger Mears began his career in Super Lites before eventually switching to pavement.

“Casey and I first connected many years ago when I was driving and he always treated me and our fellow competitors with respect on and off the track,” said Long. “He hails from a historic racing family, but it’s not something he boasts about. He always takes time for everyone, which is indicative of his character. I love having the opportunity to work with good people, especially when they drive fast.”

Featured image credit: Casey Mears