Jamie McMurray went winless in 2005 for the third consecutive season. Credit: Autostock

YIR: Jamie McMurray

Disastrous season hastens departure from Chip Ganassi Racing

For Jamie McMurray and his Chip Ganassi Racing team, the 2005 Nextel Cup Series season was a frustrating exercise in which the ultimate goal could never quite be reached.

Across the board, every team running the Dodge Charger took a hit to some degree on its season statistics from 2004 to 2005 -- but McMurray's drop was profound and abysmal.

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Top-five finishes dropped from nine to four, top-10s from 23 to 10 and, while DNFs actually dropped, from six to four, McMurray gained only 10 bonus points for leading laps. That specifically meant he went 15 races before he led a lap, at Michigan, and led only 39 laps all season -- 38 of them at Talladega in the fall.

As if the performance struggles weren't enough, in the middle of the season McMurray and Roush Racing announced he would leave Ganassi at the end of his contract to drive for Roush in 2007. Ultimately, that worked out to be for the 2006 season.

In the end, McMurray's tenure with Ganassi, which was three full seasons and six races in 2002, held a single victory -- which he gained in his second career Cup start, in relief of injured teammate Sterling Marlin.

The failure to gain another win, which by the end of the season became a 114-race drought, missing a second consecutive opportunity to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup and finally, fruitlessly racing for the 11th position in the standings made this year the ultimate in hubris.

"You want to win so bad," McMurray said late in the season. "We've got all the tools, we just haven't been able to put it together this year."

Jamie McMurray won only one time in 114 Cup starts for Chip Ganassi. Credit: Autostock

Inside the Numbers Jamie McMurray in 2005 Race Start Finish Daytona 500 17 32 Auto Club 500 15 4 UAW-DaimChrys 400 22 15 Golden Corral 500 13 11 Food City 500 17 24 Advance 500 29 25 Sam./R.Shack 500 31 2 Subway Fresh 500 34 25 Aaron's 499 13 5 Dodge Charger 500 13 6 Chevy 400 17 10 Coca-Cola 600 11 21 RacePoints 400 9 26 Pocono 500 4 10 Batman Begins 400 24 13 Dodge/S. Mart 350 17 13 Pepsi 400 33 2 USG Sheetrock 400 36 22 New England 300 17 40 Pennsylvania 500 1 11 Allstate 400 23 17 Sirius at the Glen 11 13 GFS Marketplace 400 28 20 Sharpie 500 18 26 Sony HD 500 40 8 Chevy 400 32 40 Sylvania 300 20 12 RacePoints 400 19 29 UAW-Ford 500 14 12 Banquet 400 30 18 UAW-GM Quality 500 29 31 Subway 500 30 7 Bass Pro Shops 500 28 6 Dickies 500 40 11 Checker 500 28 18 Ford 400 8 18 Averages 21.4 16.8

As if McMurray and crew chief Donnie Wingo's battle with the aerodynamically challenged 2005 Charger body wasn't enough of a season-long challenge -- missing the Chase seemingly cost the team the virtually intangible last little bit it needed to finish 11th, and visit the stage at the New York banquet, for the second consecutive year.

"It just wasn't meant to be," McMurray said at the time. "We put ourselves in position to make it and that's all we can ask for."

The season seemingly had more lows than highs -- despite never being lower than 15th in the standings, once he'd recovered from an accident-spawned 32nd-place finish in the Daytona 500.

McMurray expressed affinity for his Ganassi team, but also said he would prefer not to be made to stay there in 2006.

"The guys that I'm working with now, they're my best friends and it wasn't gonna be that bad of a deal to have to stay with them," McMurray said in the fall. "But when you know your future is with another organization, you want to move on.

"The biggest thing is you just want to know exactly what's gonna happen, and it wasn't in my control."

Spats on the racetrack with future teammate Matt Kenseth at New Hampshire in July and Tony Raines at Richmond in September -- when McMurray needed to simply run well enough to maintain 10th in the standings to make the Chase but could not -- far outweighed two second-place finishes, at Martinsville and Daytona.

McMurray reached a season-high of seventh in the standings after his runner-up finish at Daytona in July, but fell to 13th after the Richmond debacle.

McMurray was stoic for much of the end of the season, but alluded to the team's challenges after he finished 12th in the opening race of the Chase, at New Hampshire.

"We ran about like we have the last four months -- we weren't very fast again," McMurray said. "It's been a struggle for a while [and] we just can't seem to find what we need.

"It's an ongoing battle right now. It's the same thing every week. We just can't seem to get it."

The mood didn't get any better, and McMurray dropped even further, to 14th after Charlotte's October wreck-fest. At that point, the frustration of the season was nearly overwhelming.

	Jamie McMurray with new teammate Carl Edwards. Credit: Autostock
	CONVERSATION Jamie McMurray discusses his future with Roush Racing and the decision to leave Chip Ganassi, among other things.  •   Complete story, click here

"We're really not running well enough now to be 11th," McMurray said. "Other cars are just having problems."

The season's last gasp, seventh at Martinsville and sixth at Atlanta, actually had McMurray in 11th once again, but four-time champion Jeff Gordon closed stronger and edged him for the spot.

"We've had some strong performances the last few weeks and just don't have the results to show it," McMurray said of his late season. "The cars have been running well, but something seems to happen every time that takes us out of contention. That's kind of the way our luck has been this season."

McMurray closed out the season 12th in the standings -- 44 points behind Gordon -- with one Bud Pole, only the second of his career, which came at Pocono in July.

He was the best of Ganassi's three full-time entries, with Casey Mears, who'll end up taking McMurray's seat in 2006, ending up 22nd and outgoing teammate Marlin, 30th.

In fact, McMurray was Ganassi's best driver for the past three seasons, but in the end, failing to win moved McMurray.

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"I won with Chip and Felix [Sabates, co-owner] in our second race," McMurray said. "It looked like a very bright future, unfortunately it just didn't work out.

"We haven't won a race. We've had a lot of success -- we've run second I don't know how many times and we ran really well, we just never got back to Victory Lane [and] that's the reason I'm leaving.

"It's certainly a business decision and Roush has won two championships. Right now I think they're as strong as they've ever been with five drivers in the Chase, so I'm looking forward to that.

"This is my decision and this is what I want to do and I'm very excited about moving on."