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Jamie McMurray NASCAR Teleconference

Today’s guest is a man who has become a week in, week out contender for every race and a prime candidate to finish in the top 10 in the point standings and qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup. Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 42 Havoline Dodge currently sits in 12th place in NASCAR Nextel Cup Series point standings and is only four points out of 10th place, a key spot, and 433 behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jamie has registered eight top-10 finishes this season including a third-place run at Rockingham, at fourth-place finish at Las Vegas and Charlotte.

Among Jamie”s career highlights are a 2002 win at Lowe”s Motor Speedway in only his second career series start when he was filling in for Sterling Marlin and no longer filling in, but running full time he claimed the Raybestos Rookie of the Year title last season in 2003. So he”s been off to a fantastic start and Jamie thank you for joining us, it”s great to have you with us this week and let”s start with that NASCAR Nextel Cup Series points chase and the fact that you are so close to the top 10, hovering right there only a couple of points back. Is there a greater sense of urgency this season to be where you are now early in the season where you know come Richmond it”s all going to come to an end as far as your ability to make that top 10? Do you feel that you sort of have to step it up and move it forward a little more urgently this year?

Jamie McMurray: No, I don”t think so. I mean I think every week you go out and you just give 100%. I think guys may be thinking about it more, but you don”t do anything different as a driver. I mean for us, all the races leading up to Richmond, we”ve had a meeting and we”re just going to have to give a little bit more than what maybe you would. You just can”t afford to have a DNF or ditch somebody off and end up wrecking yourself. I think from here on out we’re going to be thinking about it more than anything.

Dunlap: For the time being, being only four points out of 10th place is still a good place for you to be.

McMurray: Yeah, most definitely and the thing is, I’ve had three or four finishes of 35th, 36th, or worse. We broke a motor in Atlanta, got wrecked at Richmond, and we obviously got tied into one of those big wrecks at Daytona. We’ve run well enough to be there, we just had a couple terrible finishes that have made us have to work harder just to make it back to the top 10.

Dunlap: We were talking a little bit before about the fact that it has been a strange season for you, started strongly, and looked like you were going to be every week contending for the win and then you’ve had some troubles. Why don’t you take us through that.

McMurray: Racing is so weird, it goes in cycles. It seems like if things are going your way you can hardly screw it up. You know every week your car is good and you’re always contending for the win and then you get another string and you can’t make the right decision or you make a bad pit call or you just can’t make the car handle. For us it’s not bad, I ran ninth this week and we are totally disappointed with ourselves. I think it’s good to still run in the top 10 and be upset.

Dunlap: Jamie why don’t you take us through the last race or two, Dover and Pocono and your feelings about the team and also guide us into Michigan and your feelings about that. I think you mentioned you’re going to have the same car at Michigan as you had at Pocono.

McMurray: Yeah, we’re going to take the same car this weekend, it’s the car I ran at Indy and Darlington, I ran so well with last year. Our first race this year was at the Nextel Open and ran well at that race and ran fourth at Charlotte. We’ve been racing it a lot. I wrecked it in Vegas earlier this year, so it just now got fixed and it’s definitely my best race car that I have. We’re just going to continue to race it until we either tear it up or find something we think is better.

Dunlap: Talk about your comfort level at Michigan. What sort of things do you have to think about? What are your strategies when racing the track there and what’s your approach to racing at Michigan?

McMurray: I always enjoy going there. I sat on the pole there in a [NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series] truck my very first race. I have run really well there and struggled also. Michigan, you definitely have to have a good race car, something with a good body on it. Downforce is huge there and it’s a cool track where you can race three or four-wide. A guy can run right on the bottom or you can have someone run right on the top. Definitely looking forward to going this weekend, it’s a fun track for me.

Operator: Our first question comes from Ron Martin from CBS Radio.

Martin: Jamie you were just talking about something that was leading into my question and that is the fact that at Michigan you can race about anywhere you want to race on the race track. Considering that we are getting to the critical point of the cut for the Chase for the Championship, is this a perfect track for a guy like you that sits so close to making that cut the fact that you can just go anywhere you want to go primarily?

McMurray: I think the more critical races are going to be obviously Daytona, is going to be huge. You take such a risk of getting caught in a wreck, but Michigan is just a fun place to race. If your car works well you don’t have to follow the guy in front of you. You just kind of go where he’s not. I don’t know why, but for our team the last four or five races the thing that we’ve struggled with is being aero-tight behind guys. Michigan is a place that if you are you just go somewhere different. You can get some air on the front of your car and make it go. It’s just a fun place to race.

Operator: Our next question comes from David Goricki from Detriot News.

Goricki: Could you talk about the safer walls, I guess they just put them in at Michigan Speedway and how comfortable you feel having that.

McMurray: Hey guys, I’ll tell you what, every driver in the garage talks about how happy they are when they see those at a race track. At Pocono they put them up in Turn 1 and for some reason they didn’t put them up in the tunnel turn or Turn 3. I don’t know why because you’re going extremely fast there also, but every week we see those at a race track somebody brings that up either at driver intros or in the garage area. You know thank God they finally put those put here. I’ve hit a wall without those and I’ve hit a wall with them and it’s a huge difference. As a driver it makes you feel that much more comfortable doing what we do. I blew a right front tire at Michigan last year and killed the wall. I’m definitely thrilled to see all of these race tracks put the safer walls up.

Operator: Our next question from George Pohly from Macomb Daily.

Pohly: Jamie just wondering if you could comment on what Kasey Kahne might be going through this year with having a good season in contention for Rookie of the Year. How do you balance all of that?

McMurray: I think it’s good that Kasey isn’t trying to fly back and forth across the United States for all these races. He’s just going to stick with his NASCAR Nextel Cup car. Right now is when I think it gets the toughest because it starts to get hot and you get tired. Kasey’s a sharp kid and he’s with a really good team that’s going to help take care of him. You just have to find a good balance between staying in shape and staying focused because running those cars I think its better on one side because you don’t have to worry about anything else. When things aren’t going well you go get in your Busch car and then you run well and learn something that you can take over to Sunday. The down side of that is maybe you’re going to get tired, it’s hot and you’re trying to run both races. There are a lot of us that run the Busch and Cup races; I don’t really see that being a problem, but the biggest thing is just staying focused and if things get tough just don’t worry about it.

Operator: Our next question comes from the Morning Call.

Morning Call: The other day at Pocono, Tony Stewart was talking about you guys banging it around when you were growing up racing. You should kind of talk about that.

McMurray: Well, I met Tony in Newton, Iowa. We started our very first time being with him. He was always a class ahead of me. He was just older than me that he was one step above me in go-karting. We raced together growing up in go-karts; it’s really weird because I didn’t hear his name for a long time and same thing with me I’m sure. It’s crazy to see the guys you grew up racing go-karts with that you race with now in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. Tony and I are good friends. Everyone has a buddy in the garage and Tony is a guy that if you ever see his other side and when he puts a helmet on he wants to win. Sometimes he doesn’t make the best decisions, but away from the race track and just being a friend, he’s a great guy and someone that I go to when I have a problem and talk to him about it. I really trust his opinion and I get advice from him.

Morning Call: He also mentioned your mushroom haircut when you were younger. He gave you a little grief about that.

McMurray: Tony makes fun of people and I might have had a goofy haircut, but he better get on the treadmill because he’s eating way too many filets of fish. That’s all I can say about that.

Operator: Our next question comes from Dustin Long from Landmark Newspapers.

Long: Jamie, you were critical about the scoring issues at Dover and you were one of the few guys who did what you were supposed to do during that caution at Pocono and were handicapped by that. Where is your confidence in NASCAR running a race and what needs to happen for your confidence to change?

McMurray: It’s too bad that it’s happened two weeks in a row. The deal that happened this week was so frustrating about it is that they told us in the drivers meeting, two people got up and told us exactly what we were going to do and when all those guys went on to pit road Donnie (Wingo, crew chief) starts screaming and says ‘No, No, stay out, he said you have to come by twice before pit road is open.’ So we felt like we were making the right decision and then it ended up hurting us. It killed us on some track position, same thing for Jimmie Johnson. Fortunately he stayed out the next caution and made up for some of that track position. It’s just too bad to have it happen two weeks in a row. They can have whatever rules they want as long as it’s the same for everybody. If they tell you something in the drivers meeting just stick by it. I don’t know the whole story about what’s happened there, but it’s very frustrating as a driver when you work so hard to gain track position and you have it all taken away when you’re doing what you’re suppose to be doing.

Long: So what needs to be done or how will your confidence change in NASCAR this week, next week, or what do you need to see the next few weeks?

McMurray: I mean just do what you’re going to say. Like I say it’s something that they definitely screwed up. I mean no doubt about it. I think a lot of it has to do with the guy throwing the green flag out. Obviously I don’t know if someone told him to do that or he got confused. Just have to make it to where those guys understand what’s going on. I would like to see them on pit road come up with a different system. All the crew chiefs scan NASCAR, everyone has someone on their race team that scans NASCAR. The race director comes on and says the pits are open now so the crew chiefs can tell the drivers; something I don’t know, that’s happened before. It screwed up people at Martinsville a couple years ago I believe when they didn’t get the flag out quick enough. I don’t know the answer, but it would be nice to have a different method of opening and closing the pits.

Dunlap: It’s interesting when you talk about the time you spent with Tony and knowing him for years and having him as a friend and obviously you’ve been in this sport for a number of years now and I certainly recall when you qualified at the Old Nashville Fairgrounds on the pole that you’re enthusiasm level was so great. Is it still as much fun for you to do this, are you still getting a real kick out of it besides the obvious and the business aspect of it, the things you need to do to take care of sponsors and everybody. Do you still have that same enthusiasm for racing at the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series level as you did those other years?

McMurray: Yeah, it is different because like you said, if all they made you do was just race the car, I mean that’s awesome because that’s what everyone wants to do. That’s the best part about coming into the shop and hanging out with your guys and then getting to go to the track and race the car. A lot of the times the media stuff is not that bad, it’s just that when you’re tired and you’ve had a long weekend or a bad weekend. Sometimes it seems like it can happen at a bad time for you, but most definitely its fun. I think sometimes I don’t show my enthusiasm as much because I have a lot on my mind. I definitely enjoy what I’m doing.

Dunlap: When you go out to race and you’re racing now at the NASCAR Nextel Cup level, how do you separate yourself mentally? How do you get away from all the stuff you deal with Monday through Thursday and just throw yourself into when you get behind the wheel? What sort of things do you do, Jamie McMurray, personally, that sets you into your race mode.

McMurray: That’s all I think about all day long, so I don’t know if I ever really get out of it. I think when you get to this level you definitely have to have some time that you relax. I know that, well Sterling (Marlin) is standing here next to me; I know he goes and plays on his bulldozer or tractor to get away. I bought a bunch of land just north of Charlotte and I’ll just go up there and hang out. I have a dirt bike and a couple four-wheelers. I just drive around and get away and just relax.

Operator: Our next question comes from David Goricki from Detriot News

Goricki: Can you talk about your transition from your rookie year to now. How comfortable you are?

McMurray: The biggest thing is I’ve been to all the race tracks. I know this weekend going to Pocono I thought about that with some of the rookies because that was tough for me my first race. You know what I mean, you’re just a lot more comfortable, and you have to set up what you ran last year, whether it was good or bad. You have a way to adjust on it. Being with my team for another year and going to all the race tracks. It’s just a lot more comfortable feeling going into each weekend.

Dunlap: Jamie, give us an idea of tracks that you adjusted to quickly. Obviously you mentioned earlier that Michigan is a track that you have fun racing. Give us an idea of the tracks when you first came into this sport that were tracks that you felt really comfortable with early on as opposed to ones you had to really fight your way through.

McMurray Rockingham is somewhere where I’ve done well. Ever since my first race in Busch I think I’ve run a top 10 there. I always like to go there; Darlington has always been a good race for me. Martinsville was somewhere we went to for the first time and ran really well at. I just like going somewhere different. I hate it when we run the mile and a half like cookie cutter soft tracks every single weekend. That gets boring. I like doing different race tracks and I wish when you see these people build race tracks that they would build something like Darlington, something that’s different, something that’s not easy to get around and that’s a challenge.

Dunlap: A number of people suggested something in the neighborhood of a Richmond to a Dover, the three-quarter mile to a mile. I think those kind of tracks are fun for racers as well. Is that the same for you?

McMurray: Yeah, most definitely. If I was going to build a race track, I’d build Bristol. That brings out a ton of fans and its fun for the drivers and it’s different. Or something like Richmond, that’s fine also. Just something that’s different. You know Pocono is goofy -looking as can be, but it’s a fun race track and it’s a challenge, all three corners are different, it’s hard to get around. As a race car driver that’s what I live for is something is different. So I like all those places.

Dunlap: I know you’ve touched on it before and talked about the enthusiasm, but boy it’s hard to imagine a racer having more serendipitous situation and come into the Cup series and a replacement driver for Sterling and your second race have a victory at Charlotte the way you did. That must have been an extraordinary period of time for you.

McMurray: Yeah and I’ve had like 50 other chances and I can’t win another one. (laughs). We’ve come close a few times. It’s so hard to win one of these and that’s why it was such a big deal to be able to win in your second start because it’s so tough to win these races. You can have the best car and not win the race or if things go your way you don’t have to have the best car and you can win the race. It’s tough and when you see these guys win like Jimmy and Junior winning three this year. I mean it’s incredible that those guys have been able to do that. When things go your way that’s what happens. This whole sport is a huge cycle; you just have to hope that it’s your turn.

Dunlap: It’s been an entertaining and great experience to have you join us, Jamie. We certainly appreciate it. Hope you had a good time and look forward to see how you do at Michigan this week.

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