MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Trying to keep the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates resurgence alive, a gutsy call early in Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway backfired on Jamie McMurray 107 laps into the race.
After starting sixth, McMurray quickly stormed to the front and found himself in the clutches of teammate Kyle Larson for the race lead, but as the race pressed on, the short-run speed in both cars faded sending them plummeting in the running order.
While trying to maintain a spot in the top-10, McMurray made contact with seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson causing his crinkled fender to rub. Instead of pitting, crew chief Matt McCall elected to keep his driver out on the race track.
About 10 laps after the contact, McMurray’s left-rear tire went flat sending his No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet hard into the Turn 4 wall. Eventually, McMurray climbed from his battered vehicle
uninjured, but suffered a horrendous 38th place last place finish.
The car was destroyed.
“I have to tell you, I thought as I felt like the tire might go down I contemplated higher on the race track so you can lessen the blow,” said McMurray. “And when the tire did blow out, I could tell I was going to hit driver-side first which is just a horrific way to wreck a car, but it didn’t hurt as bad as I was expecting.”
“You know what, it’s a really long year and you have days like today, but there will be other days that it maybe should be bad and things work out and you get a good finish. It’s frustrating, but I’m just really glad that we’ve run well again and the cars are fast and go on to a new repave next week.”
“I think the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) got into the left rear and it knocked the body on the tire. I was kind of leaving it up to the team whether we pit or not because I knew they could get a better idea of what it looked like and maybe where it was hitting the tire. And then it somewhat quit smoking, which made me think maybe the body had relieved itself, but then I blew a left-rear tire going into the corner.
“It’s like a no-win. If you stay out and you blow a tire and you wreck, your day is done. If you pit here and you lose two or three laps, I don’t think you can get those back. So, we made the decision to stay out and ended up blowing a tire.”
Though while McMurray felt his team made the right decision to stay out, many were left to ponder where he would have finished if he pitted.
With McMurray’s incident occurring with nearly 390 laps left in the race, Joey Logano suffered a similar fender rub and pitted under green flag conditions on Lap 231. Despite losing two green flag laps in the process, Logano utilized a wave around and a free pass to put his Team Penske Ford back on the lead lap.
Flexing his muscle, Logano was able to charge back through the field to finish fourth.
While you can’t guarantee McMurray would have benefited the same way as Logano, the questions were raised was the commitment to stay on the track and hold on until the end of the first stage was really worth the actual 1 race point they left with?
Standing by his team, McMurray tried to justify their reasoning for staying out.
“Yeah, if the smoke hadn’t gotten lighter I would have pitted, but it was smoking really bad and I’m like we have to pit,” explained McMurray. “They said run a few more laps and they are getting a better idea of what it looks like and maybe where it is rubbing the tire. And then the smoke got a little bit lighter and I thought we were going to be okay.”
Leaving Martinsville ninth in the standings heading to Texas Motor Speedway next Sunday, time will tell whether Sunday’s decision will factor into the team’s opportunity to compete in the NASCAR playoffs come Chicagoland Speedway in September.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
