Winning the famed Daytona 500 is one of the greatest achievements in NASCAR Cup Series racing. Those who have gone on to win the event since its inception in 1959 have earned themselves an unshakeable place in stock car racing history. The driver who won it in 2010 is Jamie McMurray, and he detailed in a recent interview how such an honor is paramount, especially from a driver’s perspective.
“I did not know how special that was until I won it. I mean, I think it was because I was always pretty good at those types of tracks. I never went into any of them thinking, ‘I am gonna win today.’ Because you have to get lucky at those. You have to put yourself in the right position, and things can change so fast.”
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McMurray raced in the Cup Series on a full-time basis from 2003 to 2018. In 2019 and 2021, he shifted to a Daytona 500-only schedule. His 2010 Daytona 500 win came when he was a driver for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. He went on to explain that it was only when he began giving interviews for the media that he realized the importance of what he had achieved.
“That was 14 years ago,” he continued. “Every time I have been introduced… they don’t say ‘Jamie McMurray.’ They say, ‘The 2010 Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray.’ After winning that… Every year I go back to Daytona, I am like, ‘Man… It would be so special to win again.’ I think you have to win it to appreciate the value of it,” he reminisced.
How McMurray won the 2010 Daytona 500
Just five months before the season-opening race, McMurray was removed from Jack Roush’s outfit after NASCAR forced the team owner to cut down from five cars to four. But he quickly proved his worth by taking advantage of the newly introduced rule that promised at least three tries at a green-flag finish.
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He expertly steered through a mix of chaos to reach victory lane and cemented his place in history forever. Clint Bowyer was the driver who led the field coming to the white flag in regulation, but Bill Elliott and Joey Logano crashed to bring out the caution flag and created the first green-white-checkered restart.
Had the accident happened 10 seconds later, Bowyer would have been declared the winner. Greg Biffle led the field for the first attempt at the overtime restart, but was quickly overtaken by Kevin Harvick. Yet another crash followed, in which several cars were mixed up. This allowed McMurray to take the lead as the white flag waved.
Another crash held up those behind him, and he was able to go through the final half-mile of the tri-oval without any challenge. Needless to say, his face was tear-stricken in joy when he climbed out of his car. Notably, he went on to win the Brickyard 400 that year as well, and also finished runner-up in the Coca-Cola 600, another one of NASCAR’s crown jewels. He currently serves as an analyst for FOX Sports.
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