Jamie McMurray and the No. 26 Crown Royal team took a gamble near the end of the race that paid off with their second top-10 finish in two weeks. Crew Chief Larry Carter made the call to pit when no one else came down pit road. The gamble paid off and the team was rewarded with their fifth top-10 finish of season.
Pole winner Jimmie Johnson led the field of 43 cars to the green flag at 2:21pm, before a crowd of over 100,000 fans at Pocono Raceway. McMurray started from the 41st position. Throughout most of the afternoon, the No. 26 team moved up the board as high as 20th, but wasn't able to make a charge to the front.
When the caution flag came out again on lap 137 for a wreck off turn two, crew chief Carter had a plan. On lap 139, Carter summoned a hesitant McMurray down pit road for what would be a two tire and fuel stop. During the stop, Carter called for four tires. The Crown Royal pit crew reacted to the call and moved to the left side to change two additional tires. McMurray exited pit road in the 35th position, and at the time, unsure with the call to pit.
As the racing continued on, Carter knew the No. 26 team would only have to pit one additional time to make it to the scheduled distance of 200 laps, and that most other teams on pit road would have to pit twice. On lap 155, the leaders began coming down pit road for scheduled pit stops. McMurray remained on the track and eventually was scored as the leader; earning the team five additional points.
On lap 170, Carter called McMurray back down pit road for four tires and fuel. After exiting in the 21st position, it was left into the hands of McMurray to make it to the end. And as the laps counted down, drivers ahead of McMurray dove down pit road for a splash of fuel to make to the end, but not the No. 26 team. With just 10 laps remaining in the event, McMurray was scored 14th. During the final lap of the race, McMurray took the white flag from the 13th position, and was able to pick up four more positions on the last lap to finish ninth.
“We certainly didn’t have the best car out there today, but we made the most of our finish,” said McMurray following the race. “Larry and Derek (Stamets) made a great call to pit when no one else came down pit road. After the call, I was pretty upset because it looked like it was going to rain, and I felt we gave up a lot of track position, but when the skies cleared and we only had to pit one more time, I knew that Larry had made the right call. We took a gamble this afternoon and it paid off in a top-10 finish for this Crown Royal team.”
It would be easy to do. As the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series picture begins to come into focus teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are battling early for the championship. But Kyle remains in site of the leaders poised to strike should they stumble. On Sunday, behind Jimmie and Jeff finishing in fourth place was the familiar number five with the Kelloggs sponsorship. Consequently Busch sits fifth in the points standings.
Busch drove like a veteran saving his equipment on the small paperclip that is Martinsville. As the race ran down he moved up from sixth to fourth but the number 11 Fed Ex Chevy of Denny Hamlin proved too tough to pass as Hamlin finished third. "We had a pretty good car," Busch said. Earlier in the day his car had been loose in and tight off. But by the end of the race the Hendrick Motorsports team had that adjusted and the car was right. That's what Championship teams do.
and that could result in him leading after Bristol. Stop discussing it. Mark Martin will not be there. The threads have been fun while they lasted but it is over and the fat lady is singing on that one. Mark is going out on top as far as full time racing but not ready for the rocking chair yet. Besides, he still can race for that owners championship and not have that pressure on him. And that is opening the door wide open for Mr. Gordan.
It has been stated that if you finish twelfth or better in all the Nextel Cup races, you will win the championship. It's that simple, well, not simple, but if you want to be Mr. Consistency and can pull that off, then you can be a Cup champion. That's exactly what Gordon did on Sunday.
Gordon Digs From Behind After Pit Problems To Finish 12th At AMS
"We were awesome. I'm very disappointed obviously. We had a couple of issues we'll have to work through. We had a crush panel come loose and we're getting to the bottom of that and we made little mistakes where we got a lap down in the pits. That shouldn't have ever happened. We all recognize it.
We make mistakes and we learn from it but what an incredible race car we had. Man, that thing was fast. I know we had a shot at certainly a top three but I think we had a shot at winning. It doesn't matter. We came out of here 12th, got the best finish we could. We're still second in points so in some ways we were fortunate."
"Well, it (the last caution) kept us from finishing in the top five. The neat thing about this race track and today is that even though we had a lot of green flag laps and we didn't have many cautions, we still saw great racing throughout the entire race all the way down to the end and that's what makes Atlanta such a great race track. I wish we had more race tracks like this out there but typically it's boring when you see that but it wasn't today. There was just racing going on constantly. Tire wear was an issue and you saw cars drive to the front and fade to the back and that's the way racing should be."
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