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.

Qualifying at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. was rained out so the field for the race was set by the NASCAR rule book, basically owner points and close friends of the France family. Just kidding. I'm checking to see if Brian reads the column. McMurray started fifth.

All the big names were there, and most ran up front; Johnson, Stewart, Rusty, Earnhardt Jr., Bobby Labonte, Kenseth and Jamie McMurray. Make no mistake about it, McMurray ran well all night, obviously, and got a solid pit stop that helped him win the race off of pit road under caution on Lap 229. He held the lead for 55 laps before a cycle of green flag pit stops. McMurray re-inherited the lead on Lap 304 and held off Bobby Labonte to win the race. It was his second career start in the Cup series.

McMurray, Biffle top cars for RFR

Jamie McMurray and Greg Biffle haven't been the headliners they hoped to be in the Roush Fenway Racing garage so far in 2007. But in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Biffle and McMurray took center stage, both finishing in the top 10 and posting their highest finishes this season.

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Victory Lane was a party! And McMurray was on the fast track to stardom. But he has never won again. Before the 2006 season he moved from Ganassi to Roush. Last year, he had just three top-five finishes and seven top-ten finishes. His best was a second at Dover in the spring. He was third at Watkins Glen. He had seven DNF's.

This season Jamie already has two top-ten finishes in the first five races. That is two more top-tens than he had in the last 14 races of 2006. He finished ninth at Bristol. His other top-ten was a tenth-place finish at Vegas. Last spring he started second and finished ninth at Martinsville.

McMurray turns 31 on June 3rd. He started racing at the age of eight on the local tracks around Joplin, Missouri. He drove Late-Models, raced in the NASCAR RE/MAX Challenge series, ran a part-time schedule in the Truck Series in 1999 and 2000 and then made the move to the Busch Series. In 2002 he won two Busch races, and one Cup race. As they say, the rest is history. But in case you don't like history class, here are the Cliff notes. In 2003 he had 13 top-tens and finished 13th in points. He was rookie of the year, but no wins. 2004 was a strong year; 23 top-tens and 11th in points, but again no wins. 2005, his last with Ganassi, 12th in points with a couple of second place finishes, once again no wins.

Last year had Jamie shaking his head. I remember talking to him at Charlotte in May. He was fast but frustrated. Confused but confident. Was it the cars? The crew? The chemistry? The driver? They never did quite get everything figured out.

Now to the present. He heads for Martinsville off the top-ten finish at Bristol. He has two top-tens in the last three starts at Martinsville and five top-tens in his eight races there.

"After our run last weekend at Bristol in the Car of Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to Martinsville this weekend," said McMurray.

"We had a few issues with the new car last weekend that the team was going to take a look at this week at the shop. Halfway through the Bristol race, we lost our brakes, which is not something that you want to happen in Martinsville. We took the same car we are running this weekend to Caraway Speedway on Monday to shake down the car, as well as test a new brake package. The test went well, which gives us a bit of relief going into Martinsville."

McMurray has a new crew chief this season, veteran Larry Carter. Carter was a late addition to Roush Fenway Racing. He brings experience, and that never hurts.

Carter is looking forward to Martinsville, and still thinking about Bristol. "Before I mention Martinsville, I need to say how hard this No. 26 team worked going into Bristol last week," said Carter.

"The setup challenges that were presented with the Car of Tomorrow were quickly overcome by this team. On top of that, the team worked really hard in the pits all day long, knocking off some of their fastest pit stops of the season. Hopefully, we can replicate the same effort and results this weekend in Martinsville."

McMurray is 17th in points. That's up seven spots from a week ago and a huge leap from where he finished at the end of 2006.

"I'm really proud of this whole team; they have worked really hard over the last couple of months and it's finally paying off," McMurray said. "It feels great to be running so well. Hopefully, this weekend in Martinsville we can bring home another strong finish."

And maybe someday soon, that second career Nextel Cup Series win.