McMurray searching for success he enjoyed earlier

I remember the first start Jamie McMurray made in the Nextel Cup Series: Talladega, October 6, 2002. The circumstances were just crazy. Sterling Marlin was chasing the Winston Cup championship. The week before Talladega, Marlin had come to the Kansas Speedway fourth in points. He won two of the first five races that season, Las Vegas and Darlington. Marlin was amazing. He took the points lead after the second race of the year at the North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham (he finished 8th in the Daytona 500 and second at The Rock) and led the championship standings for 25 consecutive races. At one point, second place Kurt Busch was 143 points behind.

The 26th race of the season was at Richmond, Marlin finished 43rd; he completed just 8 laps before getting tangled up in a crash with Jeff Burton and Jimmy Spencer. Still, Sterling led Mark Martin by 9 points in the standings. Marlin lost the point lead after race number 27 at New Hampshire. Ryan Newman won that day. Marlin finished 21st and Martin took over the lead with a 16th-place finish. Marlin was now second, six points behind the six car.

Bill Weber

The next week at Dover, Martin finished second to Jimmie Johnson. Marlin slipped to fourth in points, 81 back after finishing 21st for the second consecutive week. It was the first time that season Marlin had three consecutive finishes of 21st or worse.

The next week, at Kansas, Sterling's season hit the wall. Hard. Just passed the 200-lap mark, Marlin had a vicious crash. He was still recovering from the hit he had taken at Richmond. Marlin was examined after the crash and went home to Tennessee. We actually spent a day with Sterling early that week. I remember him telling us he was sore but other than that, he was OK. He took us around his home, around town. He took us to lunch. We were doing a Sterling Marlin story for the Talladega pre-race show in a couple of days. The story never aired.

Right after we left his home and headed for the airport, Sterling got a call from the doctor -- he had a broken bone in his neck. "Don't move," Sterling later told us the doctor said on the phone. For you ER fans, he had suffered a non-displaced fracture of the C-2 cervical vertebra. The injury would heal itself, but Marlin was finished racing for 2002.

Enter Busch series driver Jamie McMurray, already heading for the Ganassi/Sabates stable in 2003, he was penciled in for some Cup starts in late 2002. Now his first one came just days after Marlin was forced to the sidelines.

McMurray finished 26th, one lap down. Not bad. I pulled out the Winston Cup statistical review book to see what it said about McMurray, but the race recap does not even mention his name. Not even a footnote. Six days later, McMurray was a headliner. (Continued)