McMurray, Montoya fret but end up 2-3 at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- One driver was paranoid over whether he had enough fuel to make it to the finish. The other was resigned to the idea that it was only a matter time before he got wrecked. And somehow Earnhardt Ganassi teammates Jamie McMurray and Juan Montoya survived three green-white-checkered restarts to finish second and third behind Kevin Harvick in Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

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Jamie McMurray and Juan Montoya talk about their finishes at Talladega.

• Jamie McMurray
• Juan Montoya

While McMurray could have pegged a heart-rate monitor as his worries mounted in the race's final laps, Montoya said he stayed somewhat calm, mainly because if it weren't for bad luck this season, he'd have none at all. But here they were, side-by-side as what was left of the field took the green flag for the final time.

"When we get ready to come to plate races and you start thinking about everything that's going to happen and like what might happen at the last lap, your heart rate just escalates," McMurray said. "It peaks, and it's just crazy.

"I'd love to know what everybody's heart rate is. Maybe Juan's isn't [that high], he's pretty laid back. But I'm pegged out because it's so exciting."

McMurray, who had won the past two restrictor-plate races -- here this past fall and then in the season-opening Daytona 500 -- bided his time well back in the pack for most of the race, spending a lot of time running nose-to-tail with Montoya.

"We just logged some laps at the beginning," McMurray said. "I think that most people thought that the spoiler and the plate was going to make the cars close up a little quicker than what we had had in the past, and when we talked about it in our meeting earlier in the morning we thought it would just be best to at least log some laps for the first 20.

"We waited until like I think 50 or 60 laps to go and then made a move to the front."

But when push came to shove, McMurray found himself out in front again as the Aaron's 499 went well past 500 laps and counting, finally winding up as a 520-miler, exactly the same length as the pot-hole plagued race McMurray won back in February. (Continued)