DOVER, Del. (AP) – Week after week, Casey Mears watched his Hendrick Motorsports teammates take turns celebrating in Victory Lane. He wondered when his time would come.

Buried near the bottom of the points standings, Mears would have been thrilled with even a top 10 finish in the Coca-Cola 600 to take the heat off the miserable start to his first season with the NASCAR powerhouse team.

While teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are both NASCAR champions, and Kyle Busch is in contention for a Nextel Cup title, Mears has merely been an afterthought.

Maybe using a fuel-mileage gamble to win the Coca-Cola 600 can start to change all that.

“I’m probably more relieved than happy,” Mears said Friday before qualifying for the race at Dover International Speedway. “It’s been so long. It was nice just to sit back and take a deep breath this week.”

Mears had reason for a celebratory exhale, and could even breathe easy, for once, this week.

His first career win in 156 starts lifted him from 35th in the standings to 29th, taking him off the bubble of failing to make the race each week.

This time, it was Mears’ turn to drive home a winner for car owner Rick Hendrick. When other drivers last week ducked onto pit road for a splash of gas, Mears pushed his car to the finish, running out of fuel only moments after taking his first checkered flag.

Mears called it a “slight” gamble because even if they did run out of gas, he figures his car would have finished around 10th to 12th place anyway, and that still would have provided a confidence boost.

Plus, considering how far back Mears was in the standings, it didn’t hurt to take a chance.

“It was a small risk and obviously we made it,” he said.

It was Hendrick’s fifth straight win and the ninth in the past 10 Nextel Cup races.

“I’m happy to see one of my closest friends win a race for us, but I know for Rick, personally, it’s got to be very special to have all four cars in Victory Lane this year,” Johnson said.

The victory gave Mears two top-10 finishes this season, but now comes the hard part – keeping the momentum. After his 10th-place finish at Bristol, he plummeted to 42nd the next race at Martinsville Speedway.

Even with the painfully slow start, Mears hasn’t regretted his defection from Chip Ganassi Racing, even though the big move to Hendrick came with Monster Mile-sized expectations.

While Johnson and Mears are best buds off the track, the two have little in common on it. Johnson is the defending Nextel Cup champ and a former Daytona 500 winner. Gordon leads this year’s points race and is a four-time Cup champ, and Busch is ninth in the points race.

“I know it’s something he’s proud of, but also relieved at the same time,” Johnson said after taking his qualifying run. “It reminds me a little bit of us winning the championship. We were close and didn’t do it. When we finally did it, there was a lot of relief.”

Mears knew winning wouldn’t be as simple as hopping into the cockpit.

“People think that just because you sign with Hendrick Motorsports, all of a sudden everything’s great and you should be able to win races right out of the gate,” Mears said.

The team was nowhere close to great for Mears, who had to adjust to a Chevrolet after four years of driving a Dodge. Mears got a new crew chief, Darian Grubb, only 10 days before the season-opening Daytona 500 and he finished no better than 20th in the first four races.

“We’re probably about 15 percent into 100 percent of our potential,” Mears said.

Mears isn’t expecting a similar drop-off on Sunday at Dover International Speedway, where he’s recorded one top 10 finish. He said the No. 25 Chevrolet – considered the weakest of Hendrick’s four-team fleet – was finally starting to come together after the unsettling start.

“We proved to a lot of people out there that we’re a team that’s competitive and has an opportunity to win,” Mears said. “Internally, we’ve always known the potential was there. Now externally, everyone around us understands that. I’ve never really let myself be bothered with those outside pressures, but it obviously weighs on your mind.”

Oh, those outside pressures.

In NASCAR’s world, where rumors are as much a part of the garage as spare tires, Mears was perceived as being on the Hendrick hot seat as long as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was looking for a ride. The buzz created some undue pressure on the team.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand if you’re in 35th in points there are going to be skeptics,” Mears said.

Hendrick has said he’s set with his current lineup, quieting some of the whispers that Mears could be quickly bounced from the team. Only a win, however, could truly end the skepticism that something was wrong inside his garage.

Mears spent the week returning some congratulatory phones calls, including an emotional chat with his uncle, Rick Mears – a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner.

“I feel like I’m starting to solidify my own name in the sport,” Mears said.

Only now it’s a name that won’t be associated with a big 0 in the win column.

“I think it’s kind of contagious throughout the whole company,” Mears said. “For all four teams to be race winners this year and every single team has the potential to win, it makes everybody that much happier.”

AP-ES-06-01-07 1726EDT