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McMurray and His Crown Royal Ford Finish 20th Sunday Deep in the Heart

FORT WORTH, TX (November 8, 2009) – Coming off a victory at Talladega Superspeedway the weekend before, driver Jamie McMurray and his Crown Royal team traveled westward to Texas Motor Speedway in search of a repeat performance.  Statistically speaking, Texas was ranked as McMurray’s best finishing track on the Sprint Cup circuit, and so the team had high hopes as they entered Sunday’s Dickies 500.  Unfortunately, an ill-handling race car early in the race found the Crown Royal team fighting to find the correct handling for their driver during the remainder of Sunday’s race.  The tight-handling conditions found McMurray drop towards the back of the pack but in the end, the Crown Royal Ford finished 20th.

The weekend’s first practice session for the Sprint Cup series teams came on Friday afternoon and during McMurray’s first lap of practice, the Crown Royal Ford slapped the wall coming off of turn two.  The damage to the right side of the car found the team spending much of their allotted practice time ensuring that the car was repaired correctly before they sent their driver back on to the track.  Qualifying followed the practice session and McMurray posted the 22nd-fastest lap time to start Sunday’s race. Two more practice sessions on Saturday allowed crew chief Donnie Wingo and his Crown Royal team to work on various settings on their Ford Fusion. 

Sunday morning came and found overcast skies as teams prepared their vehicles for the green flag.  The slightly cooler temperatures had many teams believe that grip would be increased for the race, but by the time the field took the green flag at 2:34 p.m. CST, the skies overhead were sunny and temperatures were on the rise.

The first caution of the day came early during lap three after the No. 77 and points leader, Jimmie Johnson. collected each other in turn two.  The break in action allowed McMurray to radio in to his team that the Crown Royal Ford was loose in and tight off the corners making it difficult for McMurray to jockey his way through the field, especially in the turns.  The field restarted on lap nine, and just a few laps later, McMurray called in to Wingo that the car was now “way too tight.”  Despite the tightness, McMurray was able to drive his way as high as 18th before green flag pit stops cycled through the field.

Wingo called his driver down pit road on lap 55 for their first stop of the day for four tires and fuel along with an air pressure and track bar adjustment. Shortly after the stop, McMurray radioed in on lap 81 that the No 26 Ford was too loose now. 

The Crown Royal team spent the middle part of the race continuing to make track bar, air pressure and spring rubber adjustments in the hopes of alleviating the “loose in and tight off” conditions their driver was facing, but every change they made didn’t seem to get the response they were searching for.  A stop on lap 178 under caution found Wingo calling for the removal of spring rubbers out of the right rear, as well as taking shims out of the front.  McMurray restarted on lap 182 in 35th and two laps down to the race leaders.  He called in to his team on lap 206 that the Crown Royal Ford’s handling now felt quite a bit better.  From that pit stop on, McMurray and his team knew that they had a lot of ground to make up in order to gain back the positions they had lost early on.

The long green flag runs didn’t allow the Crown Royal team the opportunities they needed in order to gain laps back with “lucky dog” awards so McMurray had to drive his way toward the front of the pack instead.  In the end, the Crown Royal team crossed the stripe to finish 20th in Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

“We got behind with our car’s handling today,” said McMurray following the race.  “We started out the race being very loose in and tight off the turns and that made it really tough for me to keep up with the front of the pack.  Donnie and the guys made a bunch of adjustments but we just couldn’t find anything that helped us get the handling right until about halfway through the race.  We finally found a set of adjustments that worked well enough for me to be able to drive the car info the turns better and then it was just a matter of fighting for whatever positions I could get for our Crown Royal Ford.”

Kurt Busch won Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway after his brother and race leader, Kyle Busch, ran out of fuel in the closing laps of the race.  Denny Hamlin and fellow Roush Fenway Racing driver, Matt Kenseth, finished second and third respectively.  McMurray and his Crown Royal Ford were scored with a 20th-place finish.

Next weekend the Sprint Cup Series heads to Arizona for the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway and the eighth race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.  Pre-race television coverage begins on Sunday, November 15th at 2:30p.m. E.S.T. on ABC.  Radio coverage will be provided by the Motor Racing Network.

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