It was early in last Sunday's event at Bristol Motor Speedway, and Jamie McMurray was beginning to feel physically ill. The nausea might have been caused by fumes from the jet dryers, which had rumbled onto the high-banked surface during one yellow-flag period because of a brief rain shower. It might have been from something inside the driver's water bottle, because the more McMurray drank, the sicker he felt. Regardless, for the pilot of the No. 1 car, getting to the finish of the Food City 500 soon became a matter of gastrointestinal as well as automotive perseverance.

"Honestly, once we would go green, I didn't think about it a lot," McMurray said afterward. "But when we'd have the cautions, and then they kept bringing the jet dryers out, and we would run 40 laps, it seemed like ... and the fumes, I don't know if it was the fumes or something in my drink bottle or what. But 60 laps into the race I felt like I was going to throw up. And it just seemed like it got worse every time there was a caution."

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When you get down to the Chase, you look for all those [points] that you can get. But as long as we can run like we did [at Bristol], we'll have a really solid season.

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-- JAMIE McMURRAY

And yet, McMurray hung in there -- something he's done a lot of over the course of his career in NASCAR's premier division, which began in 2002 when he was called up from the then-Busch Series to substitute for an injured Sterling Marlin, and shockingly won in just his second career start. That unbelievable night in Charlotte, when he led the final 31 laps and held off a fast-closing Bobby Labonte, was a springboard to stardom for someone who had never before won a race in a NASCAR national division. Given that it took him five years to win the next one, it also proved something of a yoke.

But here's the thing about McMurray -- time and time again, the guy has shown an admirable ability to rebound. No question he absorbed plenty of broadsides in those seasons between his first career victory with Chip Ganassi and his second with Jack Roush, twice winding up 11th when the Chase accommodated only 10 drivers, and then finding himself the odd man out when his Roush Fenway Racing team contracted from five cars to the NASCAR-mandated four. Had circumstances unfolded a little differently, had sponsorship not been there when it was, McMurray could well have wound up another of those overqualified drivers in underfunded cars, trying to race their way out of limbo.

Yet here he is, NASCAR's very own rubber-band man, bouncing back again. McMurray weathered what could have been a career-killing instance, getting dropped from a Roush team that historically is among the best on the circuit, to win the Daytona 500 and land in what appears to be his most promising ride in years. Sunday at Bristol was all that in microcosm -- he got sick, he got through it, and ran as high as third before a late-race caution and pit cycle forced him to settle for eighth. (Continued)