Driver: Jamie McMurray
Car: No. 88 Hellmann’s Chevrolet Impala
Track: Talladega Superspeedway (April 25, 2010)
Bio: As so often happens in restrictor-plate racing, the race is never over until the crashing is done.
Jamie McMurray found that out the hard way in the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega back in the spring of 2010, going from a battle for third to in the fence and in the middle of a host of crashing NASCAR Xfinity Series machines off Turn 4.
McMurray began the green-white-checkered session on lap 118 in the second spot, alongside leader Kevin Harvick and riding the bumper of pusher Brian Vickers. He stayed there until the field came around to take the white flag, and that’s when all the last-lap shenanigans began. Battling with Harvick, Vickers and Clint Bowyer, McMurray’s No. 88 Hellmann’s Chevrolet bobbed and weaved down the backstretch and hit Turn 3 in third place, forced to the middle by Brad Keselowski’s machine.
That proved to be the trigger for what happened next. Harvick was on the low line and Bowyer had trailed him there, while McMurray was in no-man’s land in the middle. Coming to the exit of Turn 4, McMurray tried to squeeze down to the inside to push Harvick to the line, but Bowyer was already there. Slight contact pushed McMurray’s Chevrolet sideways and he spun...to the detriment of everyone behind him.
McMurray’s car sent others scattering, and Dennis Setzer’s car got pushed up the track to the wall, pirouetting atop the SAFER barrier before coming back inside the field of play...to be pounded by the rest of the field as they all piled in.
McMurray was eventually classified 14th at the finish, and one of the drivers who sustained the most damage in the crash was none other than current JRM driver Justin Allgaier, who got turned and sent into the pack of cars that helped Setzer out of the park.
McMurray’s machine was battered and beaten, what had been a beautiful racing car moments before had sustained hideous damage. As a result, it found its way out to Dale Jr.’s home for wayward race cars in the Racecar Graveyard and sits there today, probably wondering how it all went wrong a few hundred yards from the finish line.