July 8, 2007
By Ron Felix

Photo Finish * CIA Stock Photo

If your butcher sliced your meat this thin, you'd starve to death.

Thirty-one year-old Jamie McMurray hadn't been to Victory Lane for five years, a 166 race stretch that had him shaking his head as to why not but all of that ended on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway in the Pepsi 400. Kyle Busch had other ideas. Busch had won the postponed Busch Series race on Saturday morning and was going for a doubleheader win.

Busch was ahead of McMurray on the track with 20 feet to go but McMurray surged by Busch in the final few feet to win, in a photo-finish, his second career Nextel Cup race. McMurray started 15th and worked his way to the front before incurring a "yellow line penalty", that put him at the rear of the field. McMurray and his team clawed their way back toward the front and gave themselves the opportunity to win.

“I’ve said for however long it has been that there would never be another victory like the one at Charlotte,” McMurray said, speaking of his victory at Lowe's Motor Speedway in October of 2002 when he was filling in for an injured Sterling Marlin. “But when you wait so long to win, it’s just incredible. I can't believe I am in victory lane at Daytona, of all places.”

McMurray gave all the credit for the victory to his teammate, Carl Edwards, who he said pushed him into the lead. The difference in the race was five one-thousandths of a second. (.005)

"Carl had a really good run the last lap and could’ve made it three-wide, and fortunately he was an incredible teammate tonight," McMurray said. "He ended up giving that push and that push is what helped get me to victory lane."

“It was unreal," said Edwards. "I’m just so happy for Jamie and all those guys on the No. 26, all those fellows work really hard, and Jamie, that guy works harder than anybody else. I was pushing the No. 5, pushing the 5, and then Greg was pushing Jamie and a gap opened up, and I thought, ‘Well, three Roush cars are better than two,’ so I stuck it up there. I thought about going around and going to the outside, but I thought, no, I’d be a lot better off just pushing him, and he was in a position to win. I’m so glad he won.”

McMurray wasn't sure who the winner was.

“I’m not sure who told me I won," said McMurray. "What happens on the radio is, obviously, when two people talk you can’t hear, and so as I went into turn one I gave it a second for it to be clear, and I’m like, ‘Who won?’ And they were like, ‘You did.’ I don’t know who said it. I just started beating my fist against the wheel and the leg braces, almost into pain, I was just so excited.

"When I won Charlotte, I had run some truck races and some Busch races, but I don’t think I grew to appreciate how hard it is to win at this level. And after the year we had last year, I worked really hard getting my mind where it needed to be and at the same time getting my body in as good of physical shape as I could. My trainer is actually here this weekend. You know, getting up at 6:30 in the morning and working out every day and that’s the things that initially crossed my mind was it was all worth it, you know? I can tell you this is more special to me and I’ll appreciate this more than Charlotte – mainly because I get to fly home and maybe have a couple of Crown Royal drinks and savor it. At Charlotte it was over and I went home and I went to sleep, and I didn’t put much thought into it. I probably won’t go to sleep tonight. I’ll probably go home and just think about it.”

Kurt Busch finished third behind his brother, Carl Edwards was fourth and Jeff Gordon was fifth. Rounding out the top ten were Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne and Jimmie Johnson.

Bowyer led the most laps, 55 of 160, but was shuffled out of the lead with 13 laps to go.

"I was real bummed out actually," said Bowyer. "We just got too far behind. Had too many teammates behind this team up on us there at the end but Gil and everybody on this Jack Daniels Chevrolet just brought me a good race car and gave me a good chance. We about got there.

"I tell you we were out in the lead and the ignition of all things just cut out. It took me a while to figure out what happened. We hit the other ignition box and it took off again. That was kind of a bummer, got us set back and then we get back in the lead and I'm thinking man we might have them after all and then they just went around me. But it was a good effort, good day for us. We needed a good points day to get us back in this thing but man I wanted to win that thing."

The Rookie of the race was David Ragan. Ragan finished 12th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the eighth time this season and for the second consecutive race. Ragan finished on the lead lap in both the NEXTEL Cup and Busch Series races today at Daytona, completing all 655 possible miles (262 laps).

"Anything goofy can happen at Daytona and I don’t know from experience," said Ragan. "I just go from talking and watching races from over the years. But if you’re in the top-10 in the last five laps anything can happen and it seems we got in the right line the last couple of times. We very easily could have wound up 20th but we were in the right line. The car was turning when I needed it to turn. A good solid night.”

Early in the race Denny Hamlin was leading and Tony Stewart, in second place, got a good run on Hamlin but couldn't react quick enough to avoid a wreck. Both drivers got their cars repaired but neither we're competitive after that. Hamlin finished 43rd 61 laps down while Stewart was 38th -- 35 laps down.

Stewart again placed the blame on someone else and trashed his teammate in the process.

"The No. 11 (Denny Hamlin) just stopped for no reason, right in the middle of Turn 4," Stewart said. "I'm sure he was getting tight because for three laps in a row we were catching him through the center and the exit of the corner. All of a sudden he just stops on the exit of (Turn) 4 in front of 42 cars and I guess expects all of us to drive around him. I don't know. It's tore up two really good race cars. He tried to crash us on Friday in practice and didn't get it done so he finished it off today."

But Hamlin seemed to be stunned by Stewart's comments.

"I didn't get to see it but I definitely felt a tap from behind," said a dejected Hamlin. "The cars were starting to lose their handle there and I don't know, just trying to hang on. It's just one of those things. It's superspeedway racing.

"It's tough to say. I definitely had my foot in the throttle. My car had a little bit of a wiggle there but I think Tony was a little bit closer to me than what he expected or he was closer than he was the lap before and I think maybe if he was trying to get underneath me it just got hung right there in my bumper and got into us. I was still OK, had it saved, but I think somebody was right there on him probably and he got into us again so it's oh well."

The Nextel Cup moves to Chicagoland Speedway next Sunday for the USG Sheetrock 400. The race will be televised live on TNT, scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern time.

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