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Jamie McMurray answers the Martinsville challenge

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by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

March 28, 2008 11:00 pm CDT 4 Comments

Kyle Petty at Vegas 2008Jamie McMurray started the day only four points short of the thirty fifth spot in Sprint Cup owners’ points. So close that climbing back into the warm and fuzzy side of NASCAR’s goofy qualifying bed was in easy reach, if only he could make this race on his own speed.  He did.

If he had not, the best case result for him would have been going into qualifying next week, 37 points out of 35th place.  It could have been a bunch worse.

Four drivers failed to make the field for the 2008 Goody’s Cool Orange 500.  John Andretti, Joe Nemechek, Tony Raines and Kyle Petty are out.  Petty, the highest placed of the go-homers, will be at least 93 points out of the top thirty five when he gets to Texas.

Kyle the Good wasn’t whining - Scene Daily story:

“We missed this race at Daytona when we had fuel-pressure problems. We missed this race at California when we had brake issues. We missed this race at Atlanta and Las Vegas when we don’t understand bump stops and they kicked our butts six ways to Sunday and we had two of them fail.

“And that was our fault. You don’t just show up at a race and miss it. You put yourself in a position months ahead of time to be in this
position and this is where you’re at.”

There has been speculation that Petty Enterprises would swap the points of Bobby Labonte’s #43 with Kyle in a move that would put the #45 solidly back in the top 35.  But today NASCAR denied a request by Michael Waltrip Racing  to swap the owner’s points of it’s #44 and #00 teams - a move that would have eased the pressure on the UPS sponsorship by taking that team from 34th to 30th.  NASCAR has ruled that point swaps may only happen during the off season and must be due to fundamental changes in a team.

So Kyle and the #45 will face a year of fighting to make races and then struggling to make up a big points deficit to the top thirty fivers.  Too bad.

When you watch Sunday’s race ask yourself why four or five more cars on that track would be a bad thing.

Picture credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc.

Filed under: David Reutimann, Jamie McMurray, Sprint Cup Series, The Pettys, Top 35 Rule 

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Comments

4 Responses to “Jamie McMurray answers the Martinsville challenge”

  1. User Avatar Steve Wronkowicz on March 29th, 2008 9:34 am

    Martinsville may not be the correct track to beat your “let everybody that shows up–race” drum. You’d let them start nose to tail–360 degrees?

  2. User Avatar Charlie Turner on March 29th, 2008 10:19 am

    Rather than send them home - yep. The 43 cars are nose to tail anyway - what’s the difference?

  3. User Avatar Luke on March 29th, 2008 2:11 pm

    Yeah, 5 more wouldn’t make a difference really.

    Now at South Boston… that was a whole different ballgame there. A quick caution after the start and you had cars lined out around 80%+ of the track.

    I do think there is enough room everywhere we go to bump it up to 45, at least.

    Then again, would more spots equate to a few more field-fillers sneaking out of the woodwork?

  4. 2008 OPeR Award: Worst | On Pit Row on December 18th, 2008 7:27 pm

    [...] one hurt a little bit. Both Steve and I are fans of The King. We’re Kyle Petty fans too - of the driver, the philanthropist and the [...]

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