April 18, 2009
By Rebecca Gladden
This weekend in Phoenix, rumors about Jamie McMurray's future at Roush-Fenway Racing are swirling around him like the dizzying dust devils that dot the desert floor.
But the 32-year-old Sprint Cup driver remains unfazed, thanks to the advice of a NASCAR veteran years ago.
It was his rookie season and McMurray had just won his first race in only his second Cup outing. "I was in the lounge of the trailer and I was reading the paper, and Bill Elliott walked in, and at the time that was towards the end of Bill's full-time career. And he's like, 'Jamie, you cannot read what people are writing about you because 90 percent of it is just someone's opinion - good or bad. Right now it's all good, but eventually you'll have a negative story and you just can't read that and let that bother you.' So I typically don't read any of that stuff and I don't pay attention to it."
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The rampant rumors relate to McMurray's fate at Roush-Fenway Racing after this season, when NASCAR rules require the five-car organization to reduce to four. McMurray admits he does not know which driver will be leaving, but believes sponsor relations will be as important as performance. "I don't know the facts of exactly how it's going to be decided. I only can give my opinion, but that's not really facts. My contract is up this year, but Crown Royal is here for two more years and I think Irwin is in the process of re-signing. So we'll just have to wait and see."
With regard to performance, McMurray told me that bad luck and mechanical problems have been recurrent issues this year, although overall his cars have been fast. "We broke a transmission at one race and we had a brake line issue at another, and then got caught up in two wrecks - one of them being the Dale Junior debacle that he created at Daytona. So of the seven races, we've had four incidents."
As a result, McMurray currently ranks 27th in the point standings - fourth-highest among the five Roush-Fenway teams - while David Ragan, whose contract also expires this year, is 29th. With teammates Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards all under multi-year contracts at Roush, it will probably be either McMurray or Ragan who departs at the end of the season.
A likely option for the fifth car is a lateral move to Yates Racing, which uses the same Roush-Yates engines that are under the hood of the Roush-Fenway teams. Given those circumstances, McMurray says his fans should not be disheartened if he ends up moving to Yates next season.
"I think that the most important thing is that the media has portrayed whatever team gets moved from Roush to Yates as being a loser or as it being a demotion. It's not played out that way among the five drivers here. I don't know that anyone is like, 'Gosh, that's just going to be devastating.' The media has really played up that and made it to be - not really more than what it is - but, it's just not as big of a deal. So I guess (I would tell fans) they shouldn't worry about that, because I'm not."
McMurray qualified 28th for Saturday's Sprint Cup race at PIR, a track where he finished third last November. The green flag is scheduled for 5:45 PM local time, but with the sun setting around 7 PM the field will head down the frontstretch straight into a blazing desert sun. It's a thorny task, particularly at 130 miles an hour with 43 cars racing inches apart.
"It's certainly not the right time to start a race here," said McMurray. "It would be better if they maybe waited another hour and let the sun go down and then just let you race at night. They've tried really hard here to build suites or stands higher to block the sun and it's gotten a little bit better. The thing that's really hard to explain to people is that the sun is not bad when the windshield is perfectly clean. It's when the windshield gets pitted up a little bit and you get some oil on it - then the glare comes in and it's just really, really tough to see. It's not just at Phoenix though. We have this issue at a lot of places."
The next Saturday night race will be in two weeks at Richmond, where McMurray's primary sponsor, Crown Royal, is the race's title sponsor. For three years now, Crown Royal has held a contest offering naming rights for the race to the fan who submits the best video describing an honorable act or achievement worthy of toasting with Crown Royal Canadian whisky.
This year's winner of the "Crown Royal Presents the 'Your Name Here' 400" contest is Russell Friedman, a two-time Purple Heart recipient who accepted the award on behalf of all military service personnel. Friedman was twice wounded in Iraq while serving with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Supporting the troops is a particular point of pride for McMurray, who was touched by the stories of dedication and sacrifice he heard visiting wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier this year. McMurray was inspired to hear even the most badly injured soldiers say they wanted to get well so they could go back to the war zone and complete their mission. "We just decided that this would be a great way for us to give back to them and to say thanks and show them some support," said McMurray. "We're giving tickets away to the local military in that market to come out to the races and enjoy themselves, and maybe forget about that for a little bit and just enjoy NASCAR. Russ Friedman, who won the contest this year, is ex-military, and his first reaction was that he wanted to share this with all of his fellow troops. It just worked out really well."
This weekend, Jamie will be on the track for NASCAR's own 'Desert Storm' - the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Ignoring rumors and deflecting distractions, he remains focused on the mission at hand. "We did the tire test here in January and actually felt like we made our car faster. We're looking forward to getting out there this weekend and hopefully just having a car that will go all day long."
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