Jamie McMurray hopes fast start yields big finish

Show Caption

KANSAS CITY, KAN. -- Jamie McMurray isn't over-analyzing it. Neither is first-year crew chief Matt McCall.

And, it's early. Certainly. But entering the 11th Sprint Cup race of the season tonight at Kansas Speedway – weather permitting – McMurray is seventh in the standings, his highest positioning at this point in a season in his 13 full seasons in the series.

There are many reasons for the early push. Perhaps as important as the job McCall, a former Richard Childress Racing engineer, has done in building a rapport and effective No. 1 Chevrolets has been mitigating disaster finishes, McMurray said. As important as the runner-up finish at Phoenix and fourth-place at Richmond, McMurray suggested, was a 14th-place result at Bristol.

"When we've had bad races, it's went our way," he said. "We were running fifth at Bristol and I blew a right front tire out with 20 laps to go. That could easily have been a 40th-place finish, but there weren't many cars on the lead lap, we were able to limp around and still finish 14th. That's a 20-point swing, really, from where we could have been."

Though neither McMurray nor McCall are counting points yet, cognizant that every new race-winner makes their Chase for the Sprint Cup qualification more tenuous without a victory of their own, they know they all add up.

"We've had a couple of those (finishes) where we ran really well and something happened and instead of it resulting in a 35th or 40th-place finish, we were still able to get a top-15 out of it," McMurray said. "When I look at the points, if you just get a couple of those it's almost a whole race that you add to your points. But outside of that we've probably run better consistently this year than I ever have. It just comes down to the cars continue and really being able to finish the whole race."

In a Sprint Cup career that began in 2002 with a win in his second start substituting for the injured Sterling Marlin, McMurray had never been higher than eighth after 10 races, in 2005. Even after winning the season-opening Daytona 500 in 2010, he was 19th after the span.

McMurray, who is from Joplin, Mo., 153 miles away, has never finished better than seventh – twice – at Kansas. He was running fourth in the spring race last season when a tire failure sent him into the wall, igniting the No. 1 Chevrolet on Lap 149 of 267 and relegating him to a 39th-place result.

A year after numerous tire failures greatly impacted the racing on the 1.5-mile speedway, including the fall Chase for the Sprint Cup event in which Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a failure while leading, Goodyear deployed new right tires for this race, the same used at 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway and 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway. McCall anticipates the combination of less downforce with a new aerodynamics package and the more durable right tire will alleviate many of the previous problems.

Jeff Gordon, whose spring race win last year was his third at Kansas, best all-time, said he is "confident" with Goodyear's changes. But there is potential for problems in the science.

"We personally on Team 24 did not have issues, but you never know how close you are to the edge," he said. "Even with less downforce on the cars, the amount of power that's been reduced has made the cars a lot faster through the center of the corner. We enter the corner slower and exit the corner slower, but going through the crucial part of the load on the tire and how we sustain that through the center of the corner is up, and that's a reason for concern.

"Goodyear understands what we're up against, what they're up against this year, what we're doing corner-speed wise and how comfortable they are with this tire this weekend. In talking to my team, we feel confident in it."

Neither Carl Edwards of Joe Gibbs Racing nor Clint Bowyer of Michael Waltrip Racing seemed as optimistic about the overall state of Sprint Cup competition. They are among scores of drivers who have advocated for a further reduction in downforce to, they contend, create what Edwards referred to as "dynamic racing."

"It's kind of exactly opposite of what all the drivers were asking for and hoping for," Bowyer said. "They're (NASCAR) constantly working to improve the package that the race fan sees as a whole. It is a little bit disappointing and in my opinion you need more off-throttle time to create a racing environment on the race track. If you're wide open and you're not lifting, I don't know how you're going to get around that car in front of you when they're doing the same."

McCall said his full-throttle start with McMurray was aided by the momentum of three top-5s in the final six races of the 2014 season with Keith Rodden, who left Ganassi Racing to guide Kasey Kahne's program at Hendrick Motorsports. McMurray's habit of being around the team, the crew, the shop expedited chemistry-building, he said. They seem most interested in gathering points and adding them up later.

"It never hurts to be good in points for sure," McCall said. "I guess I have a little bit of an approach when it comes to the pressure side because I don't know of a reason to put pressure on yourself when you're trying to do the best you can. Yeah, I guess the points, seventh or eighth or wherever we're at is OK. If we were 25th, I don't know if we would approach the weekend any differently."

Follow James on Twitter @brantjames