MONDAY MORNING CREW CHIEF: Indy win validates Jamie McMurray’s move to Earnhardt Ganassi more than Daytona 500 triumph

Jamie McMurray won the Daytona 500 in February, and that was a great start to his second go-around driving for team owner Chip Ganassi.

But with his victory Sunday in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, McMurray proved that he can not only win at restrictor-plate tracks and but in unrestricted races as well. His last win on a regular, unrestricted NASCAR oval came at Charlotte in 2002 in his second career Cup race.

It was McMurray’s fifth career victory, and three have come with Ganassi while two were at Roush Fenway Racing, where he spent four seasons from 2006-2009.

“I think it’s just a situation where you got to get the guys in the right position with the right crew chief and the right team and the right owner,” said McMurray, who first drove for Ganassi from late 2002 through 2005. “I’ll tell you something that Chip said to me right before I got in the car. He said, ‘Let’s go out and do this thing.’ I said, ‘I’ll give you everything I got.’

“He said, ‘I know, that’s why I hired you. I believe in you. You go out and do your best, that will be enough.’”

That conversation motivated McMurray, who needs to be re-signed for next season. Having won two of NASCAR’s biggest races this year, it’s hard to believe he will not return unless his sponsors don’t come back, and things look favorable from that standpoint.

“[Bass Pro owner] Johnny Morris was here today in victory lane,” McMurray said. “We go and sign autographs at Bass Pro Shops. Johnny will be the one that will call, ‘Do you mind going and signing autographs?’

“When you have relationships like that with your sponsors, it makes you want to go out and help them. Really fortunate to be where we are.”

McMurray left Ganassi following the 2005 season to go to Roush. He didn’t have the success there that he had with Ganassi, where he nearly made the Chase twice.

His reunion with Ganassi has rejuvenated his career.

“I don’t think it would be the same if I had not left,” McMurray said. “Our friendship is much more than it ever was before. For me, it’s because I’ve matured so much from when I was here before and learned a lot.”

Pit Strategy, Track Position Crucial

Though NASCAR’s new car – primarily the new spoiler – seems to have leveled the playing field and double-file restarts and green-white-checkered finishes have spiced up the competition, there are two elements still critical to winning races – pit strategy and track position.

Both were crucial Sunday at Indy.

Juan Pablo Montoya and Greg Biffle appeared to have the best cars and both were in position to win the race until a caution flag with 21 laps remaining. Montoya and Biffle both pitted for four tires while six drivers took only two, dropping Montoya and Biffle to seventh and eighth, respectively, on the ensuing restart.

They never recovered. Montoya wound up wrecking while Biffle finished third behind McMurray and Kevin Harvick, who both took two tires. Once out front, McMurray used clean air to his advantage, pulling away from the field and making it difficult for Harvick or Biffle to run him down.

While McMurray and Harvick were both praising their crew chiefs for making the two-tire calls, the teams for Montoya and Biffle were both questioning their decisions.

“Bad call,” Montoya crew chief Brian Pattie said. “Crew chief error. We should have taken two tires.”

“I don’t want to say they caught me, but they took a gamble and it paid off for them. I played it safe and it didn’t,” Biffle crew chief Greg Erwin said.

With five of the 10 Chase races run at tracks 1.5 miles or longer, pit strategy and track position should continue to be big factors.

Off Day For Hendrick

Hendrick Motorsports was expected to be a strong contender at Indy with Jeff Gordon having won the Brickyard 400 four times and Jimmie Johnson have won three of the last four races at Indy. Mark Martin also finished second there last year.

Instead, it was a highly disappointing day for the Hendrick organization.

Martin was the highest finishing Hendrick driver in 11th. Johnson struggled and finished 22nd while Gordon struggled, had a late flat tire and wound up 23rd. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 27th.

Earnhardt Jr. might have finished in the top 10 had he not been collected by a spinning Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin ran in the top 10 at times, but overall it wasn’t an impressive day for an organization that typically is strong at Indy.

The good news is that there are no other tracks on the circuit like Indianapolis.

“To be honest with you, towards the championship, this race, other than giving a team momentum, there’s not a whole lot that correlates to the other tracks that we go to,” Gordon said. “So we tried some. It didn’t work and we feel pretty confident in what we have going forward.”

So what was wrong?

“We just didn’t have it,” Gordon said. “We looked pretty good in qualifying but I thought in practice we were going to be better, but I don’t know about my teammates and whether they ever got out in front in clean air. I thought Jimmie did one time and couldn’t maintain it.

“I know he struggled and so did we. As a group, we’ll go back and review everything and try to see what we’re missing and we’ll pay attention to the competition. This is a unique place. We all want to win here.”

Johnson had won the last two Brickyard races.

“My car was just so tight in,” Johnson said. “I had guys out-braking me at a track where you really don’t charge the corner. We were really confused as to why. Maybe something went on with a shock or something in the front, although we changed both shocks thinking that might be it and that didn’t really correct the problem.

“And from Chicago we had this as well where at a certain point in the race we just got real tight and then today it happened after that first caution that we had at 15 laps of something. After that it just got real tight in and I just couldn’t go anywhere.”