Even though McMurray had a solid race car underneath him, the lengthy two-hour delay had the CGR driver content and ready to call it a day.
“I was like, ‘Let’s just go home,’ because Daytona, that’s the way your whole year starts,” McMurray said. “If you can start off with a good points day there, it carries over for multiple weeks at the beginning of the year.”
The race resumed, but a second delay to repatch the track soon followed. Racing began again and night had replaced the day with McMurray’s No. 1 machine roaring to life. Following a restart with 33 laps to go, the Joplin, Mo., native maneuvered his way high and low with the flow of the draft, picking up positions as the laps wound down.
A caution flag with two laps to go created a green-white-checkered finish. Restarting seventh, McMurray used the draft to his advantage, knifing past Martin Truex Jr. low out of turn two to reach second before another caution flag waved.
McMurray lined up alongside Kevin Harvick for the next restart and received a push from former teammate Greg Biffle that propelled McMurray to the lead.
“I remember the surge, it felt like I gained 100 horsepower when he got behind me,” McMurray said. “It pushed me out to the lead. I remember coming off turn four and Greg Biffle was behind me, and he had a run and I let him have the inside.
“He got all the way up beside me. Then I was able to clear him again off turn two. Then Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. was coming at some point.”
Earnhardt was the hard charger, slicing from 13th to second during the final two-lap run. With the No. 88 in his mirror, McMurray had two more corners to go.
“It’s so strange in life, like the memories that you can close your eyes and still see. I clearly can see coming off turn four, I can see the checkered flag in front of me,” McMurray recalled. “I remember seeing Dale Jr. in my mirror behind me and knowing that he didn’t have any momentum for being able to get up beside me, and that the distance from turn four to the start/finish line, though it’s like, probably less than a half of a mile, it felt like it took 10 minutes to get there.
“Just because you’re like, ‘I just want it to be over because I know that I’m going be able to win this thing.’”
McMurray won the 2010 Daytona 500 and his career was never the same.
“I was at Ganassi in 2002-’05. Then, I went to Roush and that was not a good experience for me,” McMurray said. “It was a huge blow to your ego or to your confidence to be over there and to not run well.
“Knowing that we had started the season, not knowing if we were going to run all year, thinking you would but not knowing that for sure.
“You know that winning the Daytona 500 that a lot of the problems you had are going get worked out, on top of it just being an incredible moment.”
McMurray enjoyed a career-year in 2010, also winning the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the fall race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
McMurray admits he didn’t understand how important it was to win the Daytona 500 until later.
“I do remember that I didn’t know how special the Daytona 500 was until after winning it,” McMurray said. “Until that week or two afterward that all of the interviews you do, all of the TV and everything that goes with that. Here we are 12 years later, still talking about it.
“I just don’t think until you’ve won that, that you understand how special it is,” he continued. “I’m so jealous of someone like Denny Hamlin who’s won it three times. Because he knew how special it was and got to go on and win it two more times after that.”
More than a decade has passed since his greatest triumph, but one thing will always stay engraved in McMurray’s mind — watching Earnhardt Jr. in his mirror as he pulled away to victory.
“Just knowing that he didn’t have any momentum and that I was most likely going to win,” McMurray said. “That’s a memory that I hope I don’t ever forget.”
This story appeared in the Feb. 8 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
