Jack Roush (Left) and Jamie McMurray (Right) partied like it was for the last time at Talladega after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Amp Energy 500. (Photo: Getty Images)
The celebration in Victory Lane after Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Talladega seemed a bit more spirited than others we have seen in recent months. The smiles seemed bigger and the emotions more intense.
It was a great scene as Jamie McMurray, Jack Roush and members of the Roush Fenway Racing No. 26 team sprayed champagne, high-fived and slapped backs like there was no tomorrow – all because, basically, there isn’t.
The team will be disbanded following the 2009 season, a casualty of the decision to limit the number of teams one owner is allowed to own. It’s trust-busting, NASCAR style. And it made for a kind of unique post-race press conference: Happy and sad all at the same time.
“Coming over here I thought it would be kind of a sure bet,” McMurray said, “and it just hasn’t been as good as what it needed to be. But certainly I’ll miss being a part of this organization.”
The interviews in that press conference kind of gave insight into what McMurray’s four years on the Roush team were like. Heaping helpings of bittersweetness.
“You know,” McMurray said, “I said this kind of jokingly on TV, but my first year or so, Jack was a little bit mean to me, I guess would be the easy way to put that. His motivating skills were…he just wasn’t pushing the right button. He’s told me numerous times that, you know, everyone is motivated differently.”
McMurray came to Roush in 2006 amid high expectations. Good looking and articulate, he had become a phenom when he won a race at Charlotte just two weeks after taking over the Chip Ganassi Racing ride of injured Sterling Marlin in the autumn of 2002.
In three full seasons with Ganassi, McMurray appeared to be a bit better than his equipment, though he never won again.
He then split and ended up with a job in 2006 with a Roush organization which had won 15 times in 2005 and had placed in the top-five of 61 races that season.
Many thought that McMurray was bound for instant glory.
Didn’t happen, as McMurray solemnly admitted.
Chemistry problems were cited and McMurray went through several crew chiefs. And then there was the button-pushing thing.
