Although he crossed the start finish line in the typical right-side up fashion, Jamie McMurray's victory in the 2007 Pepsi 400 was no less memorable than Clint Bowyer's Daytona 500 finish. McMurray wasn't even sure he was the victor, asking his crew after the checkered flag whether he had, in fact, won. He was greeted with a resounding, "you did!" and the celebration began. Of course a victory at Daytona is always cause for celebration, but McMurray's was even more so, as it ended a four-season, 166-race winless streak.
This past seasons 500 culminated in a win for Kevin Harvick and a dramatic finish for his RCR teammate Clint Bowyer. The No. 07 pilot tangled with Kyle Busch and found himself upside down, in the grass, and sliding down the front stretch, while he earned an 18th-place finish. Fortunately his race car righted itself by the time it stopped moving, and when asked about his spectacular ride, Bowyer replied "actually, it was pretty cool," claiming that the only real problem was the mud that filled his cockpit.
The plans for next year are for three cars: Mark Martin and a yet-to-be announced driver in the No. 01, Regan Smith in the No. 14, and Joe Nemechek in the No. 13. But only one of those vehicles -- Martin's U.S. Army car -- has sponsorship in place for 2008.
The odd man out appears to be Marlin, who turned 50 earlier this year. The former Daytona 500 champion would like to run a partial schedule next season like the one Martin is running now, but the prospects of doing that at Ginn seems dim.
"Sometimes thing happen for a reason, and you've got to step back and reevaluate where you're at, and it will make you better for a long time. I think that's where we're at," team CEO Jay Frye said. "We're backing up, we're evaluating where we're at, and that's going to help us better next year this time. Joe and Sterling's contracts are both up at the end of the year. If we continue like we are, what effect does that have? What do we do? What are we doing? Is that part of our future? Joe certainly could be. Sterling, probably not. If we have a part-time opportunity for him and we can put it together, great. Right now, I can't guarantee that's going to happen."
With the Busch team shut down -- right now, there are no plans to revive it -- Smith is losing out on valuable seat time. Frye said the team wants to get Smith in more Cup races, other than those he's splitting with Martin in the No. 01 car. How? "We're working through that, too," said Frye, also a minority owner of the team. "He's got to race every week, too."
Sponsorship would solve a lot of problems, but it's proven hard to find. Every week, Frye watches his three cars -- all inside the Top 35 in owner points -- make the race. And he watches other teams with big sponsors and better funding go home.
"We couldn't be more frustrated because of that," Frye said. "The sponsors that we have, they've been with us a long time. There's a reason. We provide a good value to them. It's a partnership. We're not just taking their money, not that other teams are. We're a good place to be, we think. You continue and continue, and it's like the twilight zone. Every week is the same thing. We do what we do, and others don't. I'm not knocking those teams, but it is what it is. How do we show that value to somebody? We're trying. Every day, we're trying."
"Unfortunately we did what we did a couple of weeks ago, and basically that was a derivative of, we grew so fast, and we just had to reevaluate where we were at people-wise," Frye said Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway. "Again, even at that point, we didn't know what we were going to do. Did we have enough, not enough? We didn't know where we were at. It became apparent we had too many [people]."
"The core group here is still here and will continue to be here," Martin said. "The 01 is sponsored for '08 and the driver lineup is set for '08 and the crew chief is set for '08 and I know the team members are the same ones who have been involved at that place for a long time. Don't forget this is the little team that could, and I expect it to get back to that. Trying to go through explosive expansion is a really tough thing to do, and for various reasons, [Ginn isn't] being as successful at expanding as quickly as they had hoped. Getting back to that core group and getting stronger, it's exciting for me in that respect."
Did I just watch Sterling Marlin's last NASCAR Nextel Cup race? Will Regan Smith be announced as the new driver of the 14 on Tuesday? While it sounds like Joe may still be with Ginn, it doesn't sound like Sterling will be. Stay tuned.
After watching the replay of the final lap of the Daytona 500, NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson said Tuesday he's "torn" over the way the race ended. Despite a multi-car accident coming out of the final turn of Sunday's season-opening race, NASCAR did not call a caution and Kevin Harvick beat Mark Martin to the checkered flag in one of the most dramatic finishes in recent history. Johnson, the 2006 Daytona winner and Nextel Cup champion, said his initial thought was that caution should have been called for safety reasons and Martin should have been awarded the win. But he also believes the biggest race of the season should not be decided that way.
"At first when I watched it, I felt Mark Martin deserved that win and the caution should have come out," Johnson said Tuesday. "Then watching everything develop and the opinions from Mark and the opinions from fans and the whole scenario, I'm torn.
"For this scenario it worked out. Safety wasn't compromised. No one was injured. Both drivers seem OK with the situation. You want to determine a race at the start-finish line. I guess Mark Martin's comments swayed my opinion more than anything."
Martin was initially critical of NASCAR's delay, complaining over his radio that the caution flag came too late. It wasn't waved until Clint Bowyer's car flipped onto its roof - after Harvick and Martin crossed the finish line. But Martin, who dropped to 0-for-23 in the Daytona 500, had accepted the outcome by the time he reached the post-race news conference.
On the last lap of the Daytona 500 David Ragan saw Kyle Busch run off the apron coming off of turn four. Busch’s car jumped sideways and prompted a nine-car demolition derby that took out contenders. The final incident of the race, perhaps the most spectacular, involved Clint Bowyer, Busch, Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, Matt Kenseth, David Gilliland, Sterling Marlin and Reed Sorenson. "I just kind of stood my ground and stayed straight and kept my eye on the start/finish line," said Ragan. That's where I was trying to get to."
Mears and Biffle then both spun. Behind the smoke Robby Gordon hit Reed Sorenson sliding him into the wall. Meanwhile Jeff Gordon who Mears had clipped in the left rear was turned into the wall and began spinning.
Gordon could hardly see anything as he was spinning. "I'm not sure I did want to see what was in front of me on that last lap," Gordon said. "I saw them going every which way. It was about survival, because it was so wild and crazy out there."
Sliding on down the track Mears hit Marlin.
"We escaped a lot of pileups today, including the last one,” offered Marlin, a veteran driver. “I was running 10th and looking down the frontstretch at the checkered flag, thinking I was clear of the wreck, when the 25 car ( Mears) hit the wall and shot back down the track into us.” Marlin added, “There was nothing we could do. I just took my foot off the brake and slid across the finish line.” Marlin’s yellow and green Chevy came to a stop in the infield grass where Marlin climbed out and walked to the garage.
Mears wasn't done yet. He then pinballed into Bowyer.
Bowyer took the wildest ride in his #07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet when his car flipped over, slid on its roof across the finish line like a matchbox car and flopped back over on its wheels on the infield grass where a flash fire erupted in the engine compartment as Bowyer climbed out. Bowyer and all other drivers climbed from their wrecked machines unhurt. "It was quick," he said. "You know, I flipped over and then here comes the mud. I tell you, if much more mud would have come in, I wouldn't have gotten out.
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