McMurray struggles to fit in
Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton rebounded from so-so seasons to become championship contenders this year – and that gives Jamie McMurray hope.
As much hope as a guy who starts 41st today can muster, anyway.
McMurray believed his move to the high-profile Roush Racing team would allow him to take the next step in his racing career, from a highly regarded talent to a championship contender.
Instead, McMurray and the No. 26 team have struggled this season, making him an afterthought going into today’s race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan.
“Whenever things aren’t going well and it seems like you struggle every single week, it makes it very hard,” said McMurray, a native of nearby Joplin, Mo. “I went to my motor home last night and I laid down as soon as qualifying is over. I didn’t sleep – you just lay there. Because you don’t know what to do to make it better, or what to change on the car.”
McMurray said getting “all the right people in place” would be a major step toward fixing a team that has had extensive turnover since winning a championship two years ago and has managed only three top-five finishes this season.
McMurray’s disappointing Cup season has been somewhat balanced by success in the Busch Series, where he has four top-fives in 18 starts with Rusty Wallace’s team. McMurray calls Busch racing his “saving grace,” but wonders why he can’t get similar results in Cup.
Busch Series
Not much more than a few formalities stand between Kevin Harvick and his second Busch Series championship, after he held off Matt Kenseth in a green-white-checkered shootout at Kansas Speedway.
Harvick’s victory in a caution-filled Yellow Transportation 300 also made him the first Busch driver to win seven races in a season since Dale Earnhardt Jr. did it en route to the 1998 title. Harvick had five victories when he won the title in 2001.
“I felt like we were a little off on our mile-and-a-half program,” Harvick said. “So they built a brand new car, tuned up two engines, and I felt like we were pretty good right off the truck.”
Harvick’s win, the sixth straight victory in Busch and Nextel Cup competition for Richard Childress Racing, was the 24th of his Busch career and gave him a 729-point lead over Carl Edwards in the standings.
“Kevin has been killing the Busch Series and is a contender to win every week,” said Kenseth, who won the pole earlier in the day and led 145 of 200 laps but couldn’t overcome a slow late pit stop on the 1.5-mile tri-oval.