Team News

Amid Changes, McMurray Excited for Daytona Return

Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM

June 30, 2010

Amid Changes, McMurray Excited for Daytona Return

There's no question Jamie McMurray's life changed forever back in February when his No. 1 Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet went under the checkered flag first in the Daytona 500.

But while winning the "Great American Race" was a fulfilling career achievement, it doesn't even hold a candle to a more recent event in the lives of McMurray and his wife, Christy. They'll become parents for the first time in December.

On the eve of returning to Daytona International Speedway for the first event there since Speedweeks 2010's finale -- Saturday's Coke Zero 400 -- McMurray recently visited the track for a media event that combined fishing in the track's infield Lake Lloyd and racing journalists on the Sprint Kart track inside the superspeedway's Turn 3.

Question: When you rode into the Speedway for the media day activities, what was the aura, the feeling -- if there was one?

McMurray: You know it's weird that I didn't really have any of that. Honestly, and I know this sounds weird, but I think when I come back down for the race it'll be different, because all the teams will be here, and the fans will be here and your guys [crew members] are here, too.

The thing is my memories of [winning the Daytona 500] are with your team -- it's not necessarily just about you. So I think when we come here [this] week, that's what will be special.

Q: Do you anticipate any difference in your treatment by your fellow competitors, though I guess that's something you might have seen at California?

McMurray: No. Someone asked me if I thought [my competitors] would give me more respect, and I think that respect is gained over years of racing with people. No one respects you more for winning one race -- or for anything that happens in one day.

Respect is something that's earned over the course of time.

Q: The public just found out you and Christy are expecting a child. How do you envision the chain of events occurring, leading up to the birth?

McMurray: I remember -- I came home from Martinsville and Christy said 'I've got something I want to tell ya.' And I was like, 'OK...' She said 'I'm pregnant,' and I almost felt the same way she did when I asked her to marry me: Like, 'you're serious -- really?' (Continued)

Because we'd been trying, and we're really lucky and blessed that we were able to do it in what is known as the typical order: You get married, you get established financially and then you decide to start a family.

We're really lucky and it's amazing to me how the pressure -- or how I'm still nervous about having a child because you want to make sure you can give it the best life possible. And it's amazing to me that I'm still worried about that. I'm 34 years old and I'm still worried about making sure I'm able to do that right.

Q: When you look at the juggling act Jimmie and Chandra Johnson are going through now, and what Matt and Katie Kenseth went through last year with the mid-season birth of their daughter; are you particularly pleased with Christy's due date?

McMurray: With Jimmie, I haven't seen it as much as with Matt, because I was teammates with [Kenseth] and he's one of my best friends I witnessed and listened to his stress every week -- with who they might get to fill-in for him and everything.

So that was the first thing I asked Christy, when she told me, was 'when are you due?' I just remember her telling me 'December,' and I thought that would be good because the season will be over. And I think it's good, too, because it gives me time to be home and then you have a month or two to get acclimated to everything and how your life is gonna change.

Q: At your Speedway event, you participated with Kevin VanDam, the professional fisherman who's also sponsored by Bass Pro Shops; so how neat was it to be able to merge a motorsports event with something you are so passionate about -- and to do it with another professional athlete from a completely different discipline?

McMurray: It's really, so exciting, gosh -- educational to watch Kevin fish, because it's different than the fishing that you and I do, or that me and my dad would go to our local pond and we'd go fishing.

With [VanDam] it's a competition and looking at the water and the temperature of the water and the color of the water and the algae that's in there and getting the lure. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's fun to him, but it's a different fun, like racing being fun to me, but it's serious, you know?

But it's just amazing to watch his ability and his knowledge of fishing and it's fun to be around that.

Q: Did you pick up any tips you could use on the local pond?

McMurray: I watched [laughing]. But I am a sponge, like most professional athletes -- and I want to catch more fish than him, even though he's gonna catch more fish. But you want to beat somebody.

So absolutely, everything that he did, I soaked up and I tried to remember it.

Q: Even though you've run better, your results have been up and down. So how much of a deal is it gonna be to come back to Daytona -- a track at which you've won more than once -- and as the most recent Daytona 500 champion besides?

McMurray: It's amazing because in some respects it may have been an up-and-down year [so far], but when I think of up-and-down years, I think of people who run well one week and then run poorly the next. And for our team, I can honestly say that every week we've just had really, really fast cars.

With not only the win, but three second-place finishes and two poles -- that's just really good stuff and it's hard to put that together in the first 10 or 12 races of a year. But we've just had poor finishes to go along with it -- some of it just getting involved in wrecks and some of it getting wrecked. That track bar breaking at Dover -- we've had some freak things happen to us.

But overall, I think at the beginning of the year if you had told me, 'You're going to win the Daytona 500 and win two poles and you're going to contend to win the Southern 500 and the Coca-Cola 600' -- I would have said 'That's going to be a great year.'

Unfortunately in racing, you always want more -- it doesn't matter how well you do. You always want more.