NASCAR Cup

Watkins Glen: McMurray post-race interview

JAMIE MCMURRAY - No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd) "The only place I thought I could get by the 29 was in the inner-loop. He was just slowing down a lot getting into the inner-loop and I got underneath him on one of the restarts and I ...

Published: Aug 14, 2006, 5:14 PM

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JAMIE MCMURRAY - No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd)

"The only place I thought I could get by the 29 was in the inner-loop. He was just slowing down a lot getting into the inner-loop and I got underneath him on one of the restarts and I didn't think he would give it to me and he kind of did, but I already lost all my momentum, so I just kind of fell back in behind him. I saw Tony was in 10th or 12th whenever I was already in second and I didn't think there was any way he would ever get to us. I thought there were enough good cars that would maybe hold him up, but it looked like he got by like three or four cars immediately. His car would go so good, it felt like to me, on new tires. I thought your car did kind of the opposite of what you said, but his car was just really quick there at the restart and I just had to try and maintain the track position that I had."

DID THE CAUTIONS HURT YOUR RHYTHM?

"The cautions hurt our car, the same way in the Busch race yesterday. It seemed like you couldn't get the tires cleaned off enough and the brakes would cool down, so I would wheel-hop real bad and I was just real loose on the restarts. The longer my car would run, it seemed like the better it would get and the better it felt."

IS THIS THE BEST YOU'VE FELT SINCE DOVER?

"Yeah. We went and did the tire test at Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and Bob built, it wasn't a brand new car but it was the car I ran in the all-star race that we tore up. They stripped it and hung a body on it that is different than I guess what we've had in the past - not a lot, but the numbers worked out really good on it. It's been our best car as far as side force and total downforce, and we took it to the Atlanta tire test and it just drove great. It's been a very tough year. It's been a huge struggle and it's been very frustrating, not only for me but for everybody on our team. When you can have good runs and everybody had a great time today. We had a really good car last week at Indy and had a little bit of trouble in the pits, so we made some adjustments there and we had some great pit stops today. That's encouraging. We didn't really miss it in one area. It's been a little bit of a struggle with everybody, whether it was me or the pit stops, just everything, so it's getting better. It feels really good that Bob Osborne is gonna stay with our team. I really like Bob. He's super-intelligent and it's just nice to know that we're gonna be a team together for the rest of this year and for next year and, hopefully, for years to come and you can build on that. It's very tough when you keep changing people, so I feel very good about the rest of the year."

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE ROUSH'S NEW ROAD COURSE ACE AFTER THIS WEEKEND?

"No. It seems every year there's always somebody, honestly, that it kind of happens unexpected. I know Greg has done really well here and Mark always runs well on the road courses. Whether it's a road course race or an oval track race, it seems like all your track position and your pit strategy and your pit stops plays a huge role and you have to have a little bit of luck on your side once in a while. When you come to road course, if you have a halfway decent car and you can get track position, it's easier to maintain it than it is anywhere else. We had a great car today. We passed a lot of cars and, I tell you what, I complained about my motor last week at Indy and this week my motor up through the esses made it so easy for me to pass. It was unreal how much more power I felt like I had than anyone else. The only cars I got around that I felt like were even equal to me would be my teammates or Elliott Sadler when I got around him, so huge props to our engine shop today at Roush-Yates."

HOW MUCH DID THE LAPS YESTERDAY HELP TODAY AND HOW WERE THE TRACK CONDITIONS?

"The Busch cars stop so much better than what the Cup cars do. You have like an inch or inch-and-a-half more rear spoiler and it shoves the back of the car in and you can run more rear brake bias. It's very hard to wheel-hop a Busch car here. It was for me at least. I just kept cranking rear brake in it and the more rear brake you can run at these place, the harder you can brake. It seems like the wheel-hop is your limiting factor on how far you can drive in a corner. So when you take 100 horsepower away and you add 100-and-some pounds of downforce, the Busch cars are just a lot easier to drive. Getting to run on Saturdays is always a big deal, but I think when you come to a road course - and I think we've only probably run 30 laps of practice the whole time in a Cup car, and then I got to run 80 or 90 laps yesterday in the Busch car, it makes a difference, I think, for everybody no matter how good you are at road racing."

-credit: ford racing

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