McMurray caps emotional return to Ganassi-led team

Jamie McMurray gets kidded for being emotional, and he reverted to form on Sunday with good reason.
His reunion with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing began with a signature victory in Sunday’s Daytona 500, the latest triumph in his résumé of strong restrictor-plate runs and somewhat vindicating after leaving Roush Fenway Racing following last season.

Coming on the heels of last fall’s Talladega win with Roush, McMurray can lay claim to being the current king of superspeedways. This one was particularly impressive, as he got a push from former Roush teammate Greg Biffle to rocket to the front of the pack in a race extended to 208 laps or 520 miles.

“Biffle helped me out,” said McMurray, who started 13th in the No. 1 Chevrolet and led only the final two laps.

“I spun the tires on the restart. It’s just a gamble on which line (will) get the biggest run. Greg Biffle gave me an unbelievable push down the backstretch.

“When I saw the 88 (runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr.) behind me, I thought, ‘Oh, no.’ He had a good car, and they win all the time, it seems like. You just never know what to expect.”

That comment applies to his career, which began in 2002 with Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (which merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2007) and saw him earn his first Sprint Cup win as a substitute for injured Sterling Marlin. He left after the ’05 season for RFR, earning plate wins at Daytona in 2007 and Talladega last fall, indicators of his ability.

Due to be left out when Roush had to downsize from five to four teams, he found a home again with Ganassi, who’s on a roll in second stints with his drivers. Last season Ganassi welcomed Dario Franchitti back to his Izod IndyCar Series operation after a short stint on his NASCAR side, and that ended with another series title.

McMurray and Ganassi insisted they parted on good terms, agreeing that dynamic made it easy to get back together. The last thing they could have expected was the victory they coveted most.

And in typical McMurray form, he paused for a long moment to cry, with Ganassi patting him on the shoulder.

“Where I was last year, and for (sponsor Bass Pro Shops head) Johnny Morris and (team co-owners) Chip (Ganassi) and Felix (Sabates) to take a chance on me and let me come back, it means a lot to me,” he said.

“Unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

Overall it was a good day for EGR, which also placed 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup competitor Juan Pablo Montoya 10th with a couple of laps led as well. That, too, has been a culmination of a reunion with Ganassi.

“Believe me, I would have been perfectly happy keeping all these guys I bring back and seem to have some success with,” Ganassi said. “I just feel honored that they want to come back and that we have the type of team they want to come back to.”

McMurray chalked his superspeedway success up to having the right friends at the right time. In this case he had former teammate Biffle, whose push probably had more to do with seeing whether he could get a good run off him.

Instead, McMurray got in clean air and poured it on, a pretty good start to his second stint with his first team. And until someone knocks him off on another plate track, he’s the standard to be measured by.

“Typically, if I can finish ‘em, I usually finish pretty well,” he said. “The Daytona 500′s been a race that I think 19th is the best I’ve ever finished in this (actually, 26th).

“The July race has always been pretty good to me. I’ve always been with teams that had really good cars and really good engines. That makes a huge difference when you get to these places. You have to have a car with a good engine, and it’s got to drive well at a place like here.”

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