Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray earns best finish of season at Martinsville
Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray finished sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
MARTINSVILLE, Va. - On a day when teammate Carl Edwards bounced off the wall late and Matt Kenseth had a relief driver at the track, Jamie McMurray carried the banner for Roush Fenway Racing.
McMurray finished sixth in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. It's McMurray's first top-10 finish since he was seventh at Richmond International Raceway in May and his best finish of the year.
“It was a really good day," he said. "We made really good pit calls and had good pit strategy. Our car was better than average, so we just had a solid day.”
He was the only Roush Fenway driver to finish in the top 10. Kenseth, who was battling flu-like symptoms, had Erik Darnell on standby but remained in the car the entire race. He finished 14th. Edwards, who bounced off the wall late in the race, finished 20th and his fellow Chase contender, Greg Biffle, was 25th. David Ragan was 22nd in his Ford.
Kenseth was pleased overall with his effort, which is probably more than could be said for his teammates who are in the Chase. The finishes dropped Biffle back one spot to eighth in the standings, where he is now 350 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. Edwards remained 10th, but is 413 points behind the leader.
Kenseth admitted that he wasn't as on top of his game as he might have liked during the race.
"We didn’t run particularly well and I wasn’t at my best today," Kenseth said. "I thought I did a bad job and thought I ran into about everything. I had some issues on a couple of restarts and we struggled on our last pit stop, so all of those things considered, to finish 14th is really good.”
Kenseth added that he was never close to getting out of the car and letting Darnell finish the race.
"I’d say at 9 o’clock this morning, if I would have felt like that when the race started I wouldn’t have made it, but I got feeling quite a bit better and felt pretty good in the car the whole time," he said.
