McMurray, Larson find rhythm at Phoenix

Posted on March 15, 2015 by RJ Kraft

CGR duo scores top-10 finishes with McMurray challenging Harvick late

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings

AVONDALE, Ariz. — The CampingWorld.com 500 at Phoenix International Raceway brought the two-car Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates organization something that became very familiar in the latter part of the season: two top-10 finishes.

Strategy plays to stay out on older tires led Jamie McMurray to a runner-up finish and Kyle Larson to a 10th-place finish.

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McMurray gave race winner and Phoenix dominator Kevin Harvick a late challenge on the final restart on Lap 301, but he couldn’t quite get ahead of the defending Sprint Cup Series champion. The late restart was something in particular that McMurray lamented after the race.

"If I could do my restart over again right now, I would have done something a little different," McMurray said.

What exactly would he have done?

"It was really hard on the last two restarts to get any drive," McMurray said. "When you would get to the corner, it didn’t want to turn and it was loose. No grip. Sliding around a lot. Honestly, when I went through one and two I felt like I totally missed the corner and I was waiting to hear, three-wide, you’re in the middle. I heard, clear. I wish I would have moved up immediately. He had momentum on the outside.

"I didn’t feel like I was clear. The cars are kind of like what we have at Daytona. When you’re clear of someone or when someone gets to your quarter panel, you can feel it bog the car down. I didn’t feel like I was clear. Hindsight, I would have listened to my spotter a little bit and just moved up. I felt like I missed the corner so I didn’t have any idea how I could be clear."

Still, McMurray was pleased with the day overall and praised crew chief Matt McCall‘s late-race call to stay out on older tires in just his fourth race as the crew chief for the No. 1 team.

"I’m really happy with second. It would be nice to be in Victory Lane and know you were locked into the Chase the way the point format works.

"Matt did a great job calling the race. That’s hard in your first four or five races to make that decision in the end to stay out on old tires. In hindsight, it was the right one.

"When you’re in the car, you run that many laps, you know how bad the car feels, when he asks me, ‘what do you want to do?’ I’m like, you’re the crew chief. I’m going to do whatever you think is right.’ He did a great job today."

The two drivers carry their mojo forward at Phoenix and used quick stops on pit road to do so. McMurray spent the least amount of time on pit road (160.584 total seconds) and Larson spent the third-least amount of time on pit road (163.666 total seconds).

Last season, despite not being in the 16-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff, McMurray and Larson were arguably two of the strongest cars during that 10-race stretch, combining for 11 top-10 finishes (Larson had 6, McMurray had 5).

The first races of 2015 did not see that strong late-season showing carry over as the organization’s Daytona and Atlanta results drew finishes of 26th-or-worse in both races. The team seemed to regain its footing with last weekend at Las Vegas with Larson finishing eighth and McMurray finishing 11th.

For Larson, the second straight top-10 was a welcomed sight and he gained four spots in the point standings to move up to 17th.

"I’m happy to get a second top-10," Larson said on pit road after the race. "Wish we could have been a little bit better. Wish it would have stayed green there a little bit more without getting those last couple cautions because we were all good on fuel."

Now, the California native is preparing to head back home for the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on March 22 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX). The reigning Sunoco Rookie of the Year scored his first career top-five finish there last year with a runner-up showing.

"Last year, we finished second but we weren’t racing up front the whole time," Larson said. "We just had a good restart. But we’ve learned a lot with our intermediate cars so we should be a lot better when we go back. We’ll just have to wait and see when it comes to practice on Friday."

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Posted on March 15, 2015 by

The No. 4 driver led a race-high 224 laps in the desert

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings

AVONDALE, Ariz.—Yes, the best car won Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500 at Phoenix International Raceway — but one-man juggernaut Kevin Harvick had to hold off charging Jamie McMurray on the final restart with 12 laps left to notch his fourth straight victory at the one-mile track.

The box score will show that the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champ led 224 of 312 laps, but McMurray took his best shot on the Lap 301 restart, driving hard to the inside of the race winner and, for the briefest of moments, clearing Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet off Turn 2.

All-time consecutive top-two finishes

Streak	Driver	Year
11	Richard Petty	1975
10	Richard Petty	1971
10	Richard Petty	1967
9	Richard Petty	1964
8	David Pearson	1968
7	Kevin Harvick	2014-15
7	Richard Petty	1967

But the driver who has become an all-but-irresistible force in NASCAR’s premier series fought back to the outside, cleared McMurray’s No. 1 Chevrolet and cruised to the finish line 1.153 seconds ahead of the race runner-up.

The victory was Harvick’s second straight this season, his fourth straight at Phoenix and the 30th of his career. Harvick has won five of the last six races at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert — seven overall — and his string of seven straight top-two finishes in the Sprint Cup series, dating to last season, is the longest since Richard Petty rattled off 11 consecutive top-results in 1975.

“When you said the Richard Petty part, that just gives me chills,” Harvick said after the race.

The last driver to win four straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at the same track was Jimmie Johnson at Charlotte in 2004-05.

With restarts as crucial as they were on Sunday, Harvick was glad he had raced in the XFINITY Series event on Saturday afternoon.

“The restarts were just really slippery, and I learned that in the race yesterday,” said Harvick, who finished third in Saturday’s race. “You had to really maintain your entrance speed and really slide the thing through the center of the corner to try to help keep it pointed up off (the corner).”

Harvick did that to perfection on the last four restarts, holding off Stewart-Haas teammate and fifth-place finisher Kurt Busch when action resumed on Laps 234 and 242 and outdueling McMurray (after Busch pitted for tires under the ninth of 10 cautions) on Laps 296 and 301.

Ryan Newman ran third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Busch. Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Larson completed the top 10. Truex posted his fourth consecutive top-10 finish, the first time a Furniture Row Racing driver has accomplished that feat.

McMurray left the track wishing he had a mulligan on the final restart.

“Matt McCall (crew chief) made a really good decision at the end to stay out (on old tires) and got us on the front row,” McMurray said. “That was a fun battle with Kevin. Those are the kinds you wish you could do over again, because I would have slid up earlier.

“It’s similar to plate racing with the engine package we have now, where if you don’t get the guy cleared, he can kind of stall you out a little bit. And I saw Kevin coming and I thought I could slide up in front of him, but I also knew it was for the win and that we would probably have wrecked there.”

Notes: With two victories and two second-place finishes this season, Harvick leaves Phoenix with a 22-point lead over Logano in the series standings… Dale Earnhardt Jr. blew a right rear tire — the result of a melted bead — and slammed the Turn 2 wall on Lap 180. Credited with a 43rd-place finish, Earnhardt dropped four spots to sixth in the series standings, 56 points behind Harvick… Busch scored 39 points in his return from a three-race suspension, good for 33rd place in the standings. To be eligible for the series championship, Busch must be in the top 30 in points at the end of the 26-race regular season.

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