52 days to Daytona: How Jamie McMurray revived his Cup career
With just 52 days left before the running of the 2017 Daytona 500, which will be televised live on FOX on Feb. 26, a look back at the 52nd running of the iconic race in 2010 is in order.
In what remains the fifth-closest Daytona 500 in history, Jamie McMurray beat Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the start-finish line by .119 seconds.
It was the last race before a massive repave of the 2.5-mile superspeedway, and McMurray, then 33 and making his eighth career 500 start, won in the No. 1 Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. It was McMurray’s first and so far only Daytona 500 triumph.
It was a stunning victory for McMurray, who was in his first season back with car owner Chip Ganassi after four years with Roush Fenway Racing. McMurray began his NASCAR Premier Series career with Ganassi in 2002 – when he won at Charlotte in only his second start.
But then he did not win again over the next three-plus seasons with Ganassi, nor in his first season and a half with Roush, covering a total of 167 more starts. He had won only twice more in his career when he went to Victory Lane in 2010 in the Great American Race.
It wasn’t easy, either. Drivers had a rough time of it on the old Daytona surface that desperately needed repaved at the time.
On lap 122, the race was red-flagged for one hour, 42 minutes necessitated by repairs to a pothole that developed on the track in Turn 2. It was speculated that the recent heavy rain and cold weather earlier in the winter in central Florida was responsible for the damage, as well as the fact the track hadn't been resurfaced since 1978. A second red flag came out on Lap 161 for more track repairs in Turn 2, lasting another 45 minutes.
On lap 185, Jimmie Johnson lost a rear axle on his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – one of 10 cars that needed to exit the race early because of being involved in a wreck or having parts failures likely related to the rough surface of the track.
The red-flag delays turned the race into a marathon that began as scheduled at 1:09 p.m. ET, but didn’t finish until under the lights in prime time. McMurray led only two laps, but one of them was the final one – and that was all that mattered.
He has never forgotten that the victory essentially helped him revive his once-sagging career.
"Honestly, it’s one of the cooler parts of the job," McMurray told FOX Sports years later of being called a Daytona 500 champion. "Every time you get introduced, even if you are not a NASCAR fan, if you know nothing about NASCAR, you know about the Daytona 500. So when someone knows you’ve won that, you automatically have something to talk about and they’re interested."
