Sports - Motorsports

Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

McMurray has a bittersweet victory at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. — When Jamie McMurray got home on Sunday night following his dramatic win at Talladega hours earlier, he turned to his wife, Christy, and asked what they should do to celebrate his first victory in nearly three years.

Champagne? A nice dinner?

Not exactly.

Christy hopped on the computer while her emotionally drained husband crawled into bed with the couple’s two dogs.

Sorry, McMurray’s partying days are long gone.

“I’ve grown up a lot the last four years,” the 33-year-old driver said.

He hasn’t really had a choice. His four seasons at Roush Fenway Racing have been uneven at best. He moved to Roush from Chip Ganassi Racing in 2006 to compete for a championship. It simply hasn’t happened.

McMurray failed to make the Chase in each of his four seasons and started 2009 knowing he’d likely be out of a job at the end of the year when Roush trimmed its Cup operation from five cars to four as part of a NASCAR mandate to limit team size.

His impending departure, however, seemed to alleviate some of the tension between McMurray and Roush. The team owner’s tough love when McMurray struggled didn’t produce the kind of results Roush expected, leading him to do something unexpected: change tactics.

“He came to me and said ‘Jamie, I have learned that some people are motivated by humiliation, some are motivated by kicking them in the butt and I’ve learned with you that you’re motivated more by positive reinforcement more than me yelling at you,”’ McMurray said.

Now the prerace talks between owner and driver are friendlier. There are handshakes, compliments and the occasional joke.

There was plenty to smile about in the fading twilight at Talladega, where McMurray avoided the usual carnage to pick up his first victory since the 2007 summer race at Daytona.

McMurray and Roush doused each other with champagne, and Roush sounded wistful talking about McMurray’s departure.