When a story will not go away they say it has legs. Stories continue to run about Jamie McMurray potentially leaving Roush Fenway Racing. And why shouldn't they? The picture is about as clear as mud. If Greg Biffle signs for another round with Roush Fenway this week then Jamie is in a position where he almost has to go to Roush and say O.K., what are your plans not only for 2009 but also for 2010?
In the interim, here is what Jamie had to say in an interview at Pocono.
Q: What are you doing next year?
A: The same thing that I'm doing this year: the Crown Royal, No. 26, with Roush Fenway.
Q: Why do you think (Jim) Utter (Writer, Charlotte Observer) thinks otherwise?
A: I don't know. I'm not a speculator.
Q: There's plenty of silly speculating going on. Are you putting out any feelers?
A: No, I have not.
Q: Have your representatives?
A: Not that I am aware of.
But really folks, how else could Jamie have answered these questions? While I want to believe Jamie, is it not possible he might have really been thinking.
Q: What are you doing next year?
A: Too bad I can't tell him my manager tells me, unofficially of course, that if Tony Stewart leaves Joe Gibbs that Joe would like to talk to me.
Q: Why do you think (Jim) Utter (Writer, Charlotte Observer) thinks otherwise?
A: He has pretty good sources and if I find out who leaked this I'll kill them.
Q: There's plenty of silly speculating going on. Are you putting out any feelers?
A: Of course I am you imbecile, don't you know I am on the short end of the stick at Roush given my performance this year and that NASCAR is forcing Roush to cut a team by 2010?
Q: Have your representatives?
A. Well of course they have, while the directions I have given them are unofficial directions, they already knew that Jack needs to sign Crown Royal up for another deal and it isn't unreasonable to believe that if Greg signs with Roush again next week that another announcement will follow that Crown Royal will be moved over to the 16 as his sponsor in a multi-year deal.
So there you have it, the politically correct answers on one hand and on the other what really might have been going on inside the brain of one Jamie McMurray.
Q: Carl, I wondered kind of a two-part question. Obviously with this news breaking about Jamie McMurray looking for a new ride for next year, what effect do you think that will have from your perspective on the team? And what might you speculate would happen to McMurray's seat?
CARL EDWARDS: What exactly is going on there? I'm not very familiar. Is it definite? What's the deal?
Q: Supposedly, he -- yesterday (Monday), the "Charlotte Observer" broke that he is looking for a new ride. Possibly his manager is kind of shopping his around to some different places and some different teams for next year.
CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly what's going on there. You know, I mean, I guess, that would be a big point of speculation.
All I can say is, you know, Jamie and I have had a really good relationship. Just this weekend he helped me out a lot on the racetrack, you know, trying to give me as much room as he could and it cost him a position. You know, that was at the end of the race when I was trying to catch Kyle (Busch).
So I like having him as a teammate, and I hope that we can get it worked out to keep him. I don't know what's -- I don't know all the details about that.
Most of the following is from the blog Unforgettable Bobby Hamilton
by Tom Higgins: That's Racin' Blogger
I was fortunate enough to cover stock car racing off and on--mostly on--from 1957 through 1996. That's 40 years, or half an expected lifetime. I can count on 10 fingers the races I remember most and never will forget, this old mind willing. High on the list is Bobby Hamilton's dramatic triumph in the 1996 Dura Lube 500 on Oct. 27 at Phoenix International Raceway in Arizona.
This race is especially significant to me for two reasons. First, due to illness, it's the last NASCAR event I ever covered. I took early retirement shortly afterward. More importantly, Hamilton's triumph returned Petty Enterprises to Victory Lane after an improbable absence of 13 years. Memories of Hamilton, and his grand accomplishment, came rushing back to mind because of the popular Tennessee driver's untimely death on Sunday. Hamilton was a victim of cancer at age 49.
Here's a sampling of how I wrote the story from Phoenix for the Oct. 28, 1996 edition of The Observer:
"It seemed like old times for the Petty Enterprises team on Sunday...Hamilton took the lead on the 283rd of the 312-laps in the 500-kilometer race and returned the storied No. 43 car made famous by Petty to Victory Lane. "It was the first win for the Petty-owned car since October of 1983 in the Miller 500 at Charlotte Motor Spedway with Petty at the wheel."
Petty won twice in '84, but he was driving a car owned my Hollywood music figure Mike Curb. It bore the No. 43, but it was not fielded by Petty Enterprises of little Level Cross, N.C. The second of those triumphs came in that Pepsi Firecracker 400 and that car now sits in a place of honor in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
So to me, and most others, Bobby Hamilton's triumph REALLY marked the return of the REAL 43 to Victory Lane. This was not lost on Bobby.
"I can't believe it," he said in the press box after giving the new Grand Prix model its first victory and going through the ceremonies just off pit road. "Those last laps I thought I felt tires going down. I heard rattles and even thought the battery was shaking. "My mind was running wild the last lap. There were three cars smoking and and I was concerned they would put some oil on the track.
"I'm so happy for Richard and Dale Inman and Robbie Loomis and the other guys on the team. They've worked so hard and have gone a lot of years without a win. To be the first to do it in this Pontiac since Richard means a lot to me." Inman, Petty's cousin, was the team manager. Loomis was the crew chief.
Hamilton finished 1.23 seconds ahead of runnerup Mark Martin in a Ford.
"The boys did good today," said Petty, who was mobbed on pit road when the checkered flag fell. "I just sat and watched. Today, we had it all together. I thought Bobby had enough to take care of 'em there at the end, but you never know for sure."
Hamilton had tears in his blazing blue eyes in the press box as the interview ended. So did a lot of media members who admired the down-to-earth country boy Tennessean whose humbleness and sincerity and honesty affected everyone he met.
Beneath those ever-present dark glasses, I sensed King Richard's eyes were moist, too.
Tbfka#5 commented on Tom's blog.
Among the subplots to that race was that Robbie Loomis was entertaining an offer to work for RCR; he asked Ray Evernham about it (knowing Evernham would keep the offer out of the press) and Evernham said not to take the job, because "you may be only three years away from a championship with what you've built." Bobby Hamilton likewise reminded Loomis, "We need another year to finish what we started." Loomis agonized over whether to go to RCR, and finally decided to stay.
Hamilton, for his part, felt a mizture of liberation and bitterness because after that Phoenix win "there's this TV person....who asked a good friend of mine, someone he didn't know I knew, when Richard Petty was going to quit putting up with mediocrity. I'm waiting for that SOB, I've got his name burned into my head. You get so much pressure to perform and you hear so much stuff that when you finally do it, the #### everyone puts on you just ruins the first win for you."
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