Jamie McMurray led 43 laps on his way to a second-place finish Sunday. Credit: Autostock

McMurray, Marlin team up for top-fives at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- For much of the season, Jamie McMurray and Sterling Marlin have run well, but usually not at the same time. On Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, each driver pulled off a top-five finish in the Subway 500.

Jamie McMurray

McMurray wound up second in his Havoline Dodge, thanks to a bump-and-run on Ryan Newman with three laps to go, and Marlin was fourth in his Coors Light Dodge. Both cars are owned by Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates.

For McMurray, Sunday's run was a come-from-behind job all the way. He missed the commitment line to pit road on his first stop of the day and was forced to start at the tail of the longest line on the restart. That put him 33rd.

"I made a big mistake on our first pit stop, missing the commitment line," McMurray said. "It's odd here, because they don't have a cone that shows you where you're going. I messed up and had to go to the back, but we fought all day.

"We had a really good car and we adjusted on it. We used pit strategy, and that's what it comes down to every single weekend, it seems like."

The biggest strategy he and crew chief Donnie Wingo played was when to pit for the final time.

VIDEO Opening laps Nemechek spins out early at Martinsville Struggling Jarrett goes to the garage and J.Gordon struggles Tight quarters Kahne, J. Green involved in an incident on pit road Tough day Earnhardt Jr. has a rough day at Martinsville Final laps Penske cars play rough, Johnson takes the checkers

"We pitted on lap 330, and I told Donnie that we can't come until like lap 410 or so because we don't want to come with the leaders," McMurray said. "We stayed out and pitted on something like 420, and it worked out really well. Our car was really fast, you can't do it without having a good car, but pit strategy played a huge role in our outcome today."

The stop with 80 to go put him outside the top 10, but he climbed back to sixth with 25 laps remaining and picked off the cars in front of him one at a time. With three laps remaining, he had Ryan Newman between him and race leader Jimmie Johnson.

Heading into Turn 3, McMurray put the nose of his Dodge underneath Newman and rooted him out of the way for the runner-up spot.

"Ryan got real loose," McMurray said. "I don't know if when he got into Rusty if that had something to do with it, but it just looked like he got real loose. He was like half a groove up and with three or four laps to go, you do what you can.

"I got up underneath him and my right front got up into his left rear and it got him really loose. With four or five laps to go at Martinsville, that stuff happens all the time. I had no intention of trying to wreck him.

Sterling Marlin led 50 laps on his way to his seventh top-10 of the season. Credit: Autostock

"I was trying to get up underneath him. I was really trying to get a good run up off the corner and I ended up getting into him. I didn't even mean to hit him. I had good forward bite and just got up underneath him."

McMurray's run was typical of the last several races: If the car doesn't blow up, it is in the top 10 or top five at the checkered.

"Every week since Chicago, we've had a top-five, top-10 car, and we finished there almost every race unless we had something happened to us," he said. "We aren't really running any different than we have all year.

"We had too many engine failures and we struggled in the pits. We missed the Chase simply because of that, too many DNFs. Our race team is really good right now. Our cars are really good and they race really well."

For Marlin, Sunday's finish was a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy season. The fourth-place finish moved him from 21st to 19th in the points with four races remaining. It was his second race with old friend Tony Glover as his crew chief, and his second straight solid performance.

Sterling Marlin

"I'm really proud of the guys on the team," Marlin said. "It's been kind of a long year and we got things turned around here, running 12th last week and fourth today. Tony made some great calls."

After running around near the back at the start -- he was as low as 37th -- he vaulted back to the top three by lap 50. Marlin led twice for 50 laps, and the final time was from laps 412-439. Marlin gave way to eventual winner Johnson then, but hung on for the fourth-place run on a newly repaved speedway without an outer groove.

"It was fun running out front," Marlin said. "I did all I could to bring it home in one piece. We were really good when we were running out front. I wish we hadn't had to come in at all.

"I've been racing here a lot of years and I still haven't won one, but we're not giving up. We had a car that could have won today. We'll go get 'em next week at Atlanta and keep working hard to turn things around for next season."