Daytona, FL — February 16, 2010

Raybestos® Brand Brakes NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Rundown:

It’s a safe bet that Jamie McMurray is a fan of NASCAR’s new green-white-checkered restart rules.
The sanctioning body announced Feb. 11 a maximum of three restart attempts prior to the white flag.  If the leader has taken the white flag and the caution flag is displayed, the field is frozen and the race will not be restarted.  Previously, there was only one restart attempt.  On Sunday night at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, McMurray needed two for a Daytona 500 victory.  He led just once covering the final two laps thanks in large part to a push from Greg Biffle then had to hold off a fast closing Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap for the win.  “Biffle helped me out,” McMurray said.  “I spun the tires on the restart. It is just a gamble on which line to get the biggest run. Greg gave me an unbelievable push down the backstretch. Then when I saw the No. 88 [Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) behind me, I thought 'Oh no'. He had a good car and Earnhardt at Daytona is just, I mean they win all the time it seems like. So you never know what to expect.” 

Kevin “Bono” Manion, McMurray’s crew chief, couldn’t bare to watch the final lap.  “I closed my eyes for the last lap," Manion said.  “I guess this means I'm going to Disneyland! That was awesome. Chip [Ganassi], Felix [Sabates], and Teresa [Earnhardt] give us everything we need.  You'd better watch out for this Earnhardt Ganassi Team this year.”  McMurray had a tough time trying to put his Daytona 500 victory into perspective and struggled to keep his emotions under control.

“It’s unbelievable,” McMurray said.  “I really can’t put into words the way it feels.  It’s very emotional.  I don’t know that I’ve cried like that.  I’ve kept trying to compose myself.  It just means so much.  You know, for me, to be in position that I was four or five months ago, to have Chip and Felix and Bass Pro Shops welcome me into their organization, it means a lot.  It’s a great way for me to pay those guys back.”  McMurray scored his third victory in 30 restrictor plate races and his fourth in 259 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts.  He led the race for just two laps, the fewest ever by a Daytona 500 winner.  McMurray claimed his second victory and fourth top-10 finish in 15 races at Daytona.  His other Daytona win came in the 2007 Coca-Cola Zero 400.  He was victorious in the most recent restrictor plate race in October 2009 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.  McMurray averaged 137.284 mph in a race that took 3 hours, 47 minutes and 16 seconds to complete.  The event was stopped twice for 2 hours and 24 minutes for repairs to the track surface between Turns 1 and 2.  There were 52 lead changes among 21 drivers and McMurray’s official margin of victory over second-place Earnhardt Jr. was .119 seconds (about one car length).  

  
Raybestos® Rookie Terry Cook failed to make the field for the Daytona 500.  Cook was challenging for one of the two positions available in the first Gatorade Duel qualifying race Feb. 11 when contact with another car sent him for a spin off Turn 4 on lap 32 of the 60-lap race.  The end result was a good bit of damage to the right front of Cook’s No. 46 Dodge which severely hampered his chances to race his way into the Daytona 500.  He was credited with a 20th-place finish.  Cook said his car was a handful in the early laps of the race but improved after the team’s first pit stop for tires and chassis adjustments.  “All of a sudden the car went from a not-so-good car to a really good car and drafted our way back up into a transfer spot,” Cook said.  “I don’t exactly what happened.  I got tagged really hard from behind and spun off Turn 4 here.  It’s a shame.  Looking at who finished where at the end of that race I thought we had a shot at it and unfortunately got run into and got ran over and dumped and we don’t make the Daytona 500.  I think had we been able to stay out of trouble and not gotten wrecked by another car out there we would have been fine and been in the Daytona 500.”
 
Joe Gibbs Racing Rundown:

 Kyle Busch claimed the best finish by Joe Gibbs Racing, posting a 14th-place effort.  Dave Rogers, Busch’s crew chief, said that the finish didn’t match the car’s performance.  “Kyle (Busch) just said it was tough to pick the right line at the end and this aero package has definitely made it difficult to race,” Rogers said.  “I think even if you’re a little bit better than the guy in front of you, if you don’t have a lot of help you’re not going to make the pass.  The car could’ve been better but I don’t think it was 14th.  “The cars move around a lot with the new additions on the deck lid and the end plates.  We know why they were implemented.  They were implemented for the right reasons, but still it changed the racing.  It just made it very difficult.  It definitely equalized the field and it made it very difficult to find an advantage, and if you didn’t have a friend you weren’t going anywhere.  We didn’t put it together at the end I guess.”

Denny Hamlin crossed the finish line 17th and said after the race his chances to win were hurt when he got stuck in the pits late in the race.  “We were going to do what the 42 [Juan Pablo Montoya] did and they lied to us which is their job to try to win the race,” Hamlin said.  “And what it did is it got us stuck in a pit stall and we couldn’t move.  The thing is we committed to four tires and then he [Juan Pablo Montoya] said he was going to do two and we in turn did two but then he went for four [tires] so I got stuck in my pit stall with old tires and I just had to backup to go.  Everyone is trying to win the Daytona 500 and it was a strong effort for our FedEx team.  We didn’t push it until 50 to go obviously.  That’s when we made our move to the front.  We had the oldest tires and it just couldn’t hang on at the end.”

  Joey Logano claimed a 20th-place finish at Daytona and said he and crew chief Greg Zipadelli are gaining ground learning what Logano needs in his cars to go fast.  “I’ve said this over and over again -- last year I came here and didn’t know which way was up basically,” Logano said.  “It helps to know what you want in your race car and that’s the biggest thing.  We fought that all year, not just here at Daytona but everywhere.  We started off a little bit free, trying to get a balance between too loose on the top side and too tight on the bottom.  That last run we got too tight on both ends.  So we tried to take some wedge out and make some adjustments to that and try to help that.” 
 
Raybestos® Brand Brakes NASCAR Nationwide Series Rundown:

Tony Stewart held off Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick to win Saturday’s DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona. 
Stewart grabbed the lead with 25 laps to go and never looked back, crossing the finish line .309 seconds (about two car lengths) ahead of Edwards, who edged Harvick by a bumper for second position.  The victory was Stewart’s ninth in 90 Nationwide Series starts and won for the fifth time in 10 races at Daytona.  He led three times for 38 laps to capture WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors.  Stewart averaged 123.683 mph in a race that took 2 hours, 25 minutes and 32 seconds to complete.  There were 16 lead changes among 12 drivers and the race was slowed by seven cautions for 32 laps.

James Buescher was the top Raybestos® Rookie at Daytona.  Buescher posted an eighth-place finish, his second top-10 in nine NASCAR Nationwide Series starts.  His other top-10 was a seventh-place finish at Gateway (Madison, Ill.) International Raceway in 2008.  He made just two NASCAR Nationwide Series starts in 2009.  He became the first Raybestos® Rookie to score a top-10 in the February race at Daytona since Bryan Clauson finished sixth in 2008.

“I was left with just third and fourth gear and the next pit stop burned third gear up trying to leave the pits so luckily we didn’t have to pit anymore ‘cause all I had left for the last third of the race was only fourth gear,” Buescher said.  “I’m really pleased with everybody at Phoenix Racing.  It’s a good start to the year to come home eighth and actually finish the race with every problem that we had with the drive train and avoided a lot of big wrecks so I’m pretty pleased.”

Buescher and team owner James Finch were notified in the days leading up to Daytona that Miccosukee Indian Gaming and Resorts was not going to be the team’s sponsor in 2010.  Despite the sponsorship setback, Buescher said everything with his team was full speed ahead.   “We’re committed to go to every race and James Finch is committed to that for me,” Buescher said.  “We’re still searching for sponsorship but we will be at every race trying to win Raybestos® Rookie of the Year and finish up in the top-five, top-10 in points.”

The rest of the Raybestos® Rookie class: Brian Scott (19th), Colin Braun (34th) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (36th).

Raybestos® Brand Brakes Camping World Truck Series Rundown:

Timothy Peters passed Todd Bodine on the final lap to win Saturday night’s NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona.  Peters beat Bodine to the finish line by just .066 seconds (about a bumper) to score the biggest win of his young career, his second in 69 races.  He won for the first time in three races at Daytona and scored his second top-10.  Peters averaged 115.296 in a race that was slowed by seven cautions for 33 laps.  The event featured 23 lead changes among 12 drivers and took 2 hours, 10 minutes and six seconds to complete. 

 
Brett Butler was the Raybestos® Rookie of the Race at Daytona, scoring an 11th-place finish, his best in five NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races.  Butler’s best previous finish was 20th at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in 2009 (fall race).  He posted his first career lead lap finish at Daytona and led (once for one lap) for the first time in his truck series career.  Butler has completed 873 of 887 total possible laps in five career starts.  “Our Fuel Doctor Go Green Machine was pretty good all night,” Butler said.  “We kind of just stayed in the back.  We were one of the smart ones avoiding all the wrecks. Man, I can’t thank these guys enough.  With 12 laps to go we decided to get with the pack.  I think we were in 10th or so and we went three wide, got a little loose, just barely saved it, caught back up to the field and just ran out of time.  I’ve ran four truck races and this is my best finish.  The Rick Ware Racing guys, I can’t thank them enough.”

The rest of the class: Brett Butler (11th), Justin Lofton (18th), Austin Dillon (26th), Jennifer Jo Cobb (34th) and Landon Cassill (36th).
  
Raybestos® Brakes Status Sheet:
Daytona 500 

                       
1. Jamie McMurray             6. Martin Truex Jr.                                                                                                 
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr.         7. Kevin Harvick                                                                          
3. Greg Biffle                       8. Matt Kenseth                
4. Clint Bowyer                   9. Carl Edwards                     
5. David Reutimann          10. Juan Pablo Montoya

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Points:

1. Jamie McMurray           190
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr.        175      
3. Greg Biffle                     170
4. Clint Bowyer                 165 
5. Kevin Harvick               156
6. David Reutimann         155           
7. Martin Truex Jr.            155
8. Matt Kenseth                142 
9. Juan Pablo Montoya    139  
10. Carl Edwards              138

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:

1. Terry Cook                      1
2. Kevin Conway                0  

NASCAR Nationwide Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:

1. James Buescher          14
2. Brian Scott                     10
3. Colin Braun                      9
4. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.       8
5. Parker Kligerman            1

NASCAR Camping World Series Raybestos® Rookie of the Year:

1. Brett Butler                    11
2. Justin Lofton                 10
3. Austin Dillon                  9                          
4. Jennifer Jo Cobb           8
5. Landon Cassill              7