"Clear, clear, clear," was the call by Casey Mears' spotter as he attempted to pass Michael Waltrip's No. 55 NAPA Toyota. The only problem was, Mears was in no way clear to make the pass. Taking his spotter's advice, Mears turned his No. 5 Kellogg's/CarQuest Chevrolet up into Waltrip and triggered a massive seven-car pile-up in Bristol's version of the Big One.

On the same day Mears announced he would be joining Richard Childress Racing in 2009, the call from his spotter was a bit too coincidental.

"I like my spotter," Mears said after the incident, "he is a good guy, but man that's ridiculous. We took a bunch of cars out for no reason. I was just running along, heard clear, clear, clear and went up and there was someone still there. We just took out a bunch of cars for no reason and ourselves. I am pretty upset about it. There were a lot of people that got involved in that which shouldn't have been involved at all because it shouldn't have happened."

In addition to Mears and Waltrip, Reed Sorenson, Robby Gordon, Sam Hornish Jr., and Chase contenders Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne were involved. Although Bowyer was able to soldier on to a 7th-place finish, Kahne was not as lucky. The damage was the too much to recover from and forced the Gillett Evernham Motorsports to settle with another disappointing finish for the second week in a row.

While Mears took responsibility and placed it on the head of his spotter, Bowyer had a different view of the incident. After getting caught up in the incident, the driver of the No. 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet radioed crew chief Gil Martin saying, "Michael Waltrip is the worst driver in NASCAR period. I can't believe NAPA signed back on [for 2009]."

Either way you look at it, the mid-race incident was an indication that the Bristol fans loved to love is still alive and well.