Points tabulations had entered #1-Jamie McMurray’s mid-race calculus by May, as he ran mid-pack in the final 30 laps at Talladega Superspeedway. He could pull out and hope for a push, advance, possibly win what would still stand as his only victory of the season. Or he could ride, amass points, and continue pursuing his first-ever berth in the multiple variations of the Chase for the Sprint Cup that debuted in 2004. “I wanted to pull down, because you want to go win,” McMurray told USA TODAY Sports. “And I came on the radio and asked, “How many cars are on the lead lap?’ And they said 32. I was like, I am not willing to give up 12 points for trying to gain five. I didn’t like the risk versus the reward.” McMurray chose points and still managed to follow the line to an 11th-place finish. Those points help him enter the Brickyard 400 on Sunday ninth in the standings, highest among Sprint Cup non-winners.
Both McMurray and crew chief Matt McCall operate under the assumption that three-race winner #18-Kyle Busch will climb three more rungs to 30th in driver points and leave just five transfer spots available. That impacts their math. “Honestly, as long as Kyle Busch is 99 percent going to make the top 30, which will put him in the Chase, for the most part, if we don’t have someone outside of the top 16 win a race, I wouldn’t say we’re guaranteed in, but I think we’re really comfortably going to be in,” McMurray said. “It’s if you get one or two guys at a road course somewhere or maybe win a fuel mileage race, if they win outside of that, that’s when it gets really tough because you’d have to be in the top 13 or 14 in points.”(USA Today)(7-26-2015)
