Brian Murphy became the first consumer to own a race-ready NASCAR Winston Cup Series car in a ceremony before Sunday’s DieHard 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Mark Martin, who drove the Jack Roush-prepared car to three top-5 finishes in four races, signed the title of the car over to Murphy, the grand-prize winner of Valvoline’s Big Race Sweepstakes. “I’ve followed Mark’s career through the years — I’m one of his biggest fans,” said Murphy, who lives in the small Arkansas town (population 654) just 20 miles south of Martin’s hometown of Batesville and 40 miles north of Little Rock. “What better souvenir is there than a real race car? This is a dream come true. “I’m going to enter it in car shows and maybe see if I can drive it once around town to celebrate.” Murphy, a 27-year-old computer operator at Wal-Mart in Searcy, Ark., is one of more than 350,000 people who entered the contest, which ran May 1 to June 26. Murphy sent in 100 entries and won by random drawing. The car — numbered JR-48 in the series of race cars Jack Roush has produced — comes complete with all the racing components, including a 750-horsepower engine, suspension components, Goodyear Eagles and more. It is valued at more than $100,000. Martin raced the car four times, finishing fifth at the 1995 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, fourth at Pocono Speedway in June, 1996, fourth in The Winston at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1996 and 18th in the The Winston in 1995. The car remained in Roush Racing’s active fleet until Murphy took ownership of it Sunday.(NASCAR Online), I hear Murphy said maybe he should sell the car to Earnhardt so he would run decent, this caused a few looks at the ceremony(10-11-97)
