Jamie McMurray

Jamie McMurray was born on June 3^rd 1976 in Joplin Missouri. He is known for his big win in 2002 in UAQ-GM Quality 500 while substituting for a driver during his second Winston Cup start. Jamie is best known for his two huge victories in 2010. One being the biggest event in NASCAR they Daytona 500 and the other being the Brickyard 400 which he just won recently. He drives the #1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet Impala full time in the Sprint Cup Series for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing! Jamie grew up racing go-carts and competed all around the country until he was ready to move up to late-model stock cars. Since 2007 he has also continued to race in World Karting Association when he has his weekends opened. In 2001 he started competing full-time in NASCAR Busch Series where he drove the #27 for Brewco Motorsports. That year and the following Jamie won two races, and even finished 6^th in the overall standings!! Then at the end of the season in 2002, Chip Ganassi announced that Jamie would be the driver of Texaco-Havoline which was sponsored by Dodge in 2003. However these plans got moved up due to Sterling Marlin fracturing his vertebra at the Kansas Speedway. While filling in Jamie made his Cup debut at Talladega driving the #40Coors Light Dodge, and the following week was when he set the modern era record!! This was the record for fewest starts before a win, and also first start at a 1.5 mile track! In 2003 Jamie became a regular in the Winston Cup series and began competing part-time in the Busch Series. In 2005 after finding out that McMurray wanted to drive the #42 for Roush Fenway Ganassi was very persistent and not going to release him from his contract! However later on that season he did get released from his contract and went to go race for Roush Fenway Racing. Then in 2006 his best finish was in Dover where he finished 2^nd after he led the most laps during the race. While he was racing in the Pepsi 400 during his 2007 season he won his second career cup, just passing Kyle Busch by .005 seconds. In 2009, the next season McMurray announced that he would be moving to Yates Racing to be crew chief for Paul Menerd. However still racing he finished second at the Budweiser Shootout at the beginning of his season. Then at the Daytona 500 where he was involved in the race’s biggest crash he was eliminated. Later on they did inform Jamie that he would be able to leave at the end of the season because Roush Fenway needed to cut down the team! So after winning the AMP Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway he was eliminated by Roush Fenway just as expected! Then that year replacing Martin Truex Jr he started to drive for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in the #1 car. This year at the Daytona 500 McMurray won, only leading in two laps which was the least in Daytona history! He will continue to race this year, and will drive in nine races for JR Motorsports! Sunday will mark Jamie McMurray’s eighth Sprint Cup Series start at Chicagoland Speedway. McMurray’s career best came in 2003 under the ownership of Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates at his first visit to the track where he started eighth and finished 10th. He has zero DNF’s at the 1.5-mile oval track.   Jamie is currently ( July 2010) competing in the Nationwide Series where he holds 16^th in the point standings for the 2010 season. He and is one of the drivers that is a huge contender to make the top 12 Chace. He competes in the No 88 Hellmann’s Chevy for JR Motorsports. His first start for this team was at an event in April at Texas Motor Speedway. At the Aaron’s 499 Jamie led the race for 27 total laps. He has started in 16 different races for this season thus far. As of now he has 5 top tens, 4 top fives, and of course the victory at Daytona. He won the Brickyard event this weekend 7-25-10, which made three major wins for the team this season. They received a triple crown, and this will go down in NASCAR history. He earned over 400,000 dollars for this event, and beat Kevin Harvick by just seconds. This event is the 2nd biggest in NASCAR right behind the Daytona 500 and gets over 250,000 fans!!!