EGR to sign McMurray, and Sterling Marlin to Retire?

According to Autosport.com, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing will be announcing that they will be signing Jamie McMurray for the 2010 Nascar Sprint Cup Season.

McMurray, who is 33 years old and has spent the last four year driving a Roush/Fenway Racing Ford, will be driving the EGR's No 1 Chevy that has been piloted by Martin Truex Jr. Truex has signed with Micheal Waltrip Racing to drive the No 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry.

If these rumors are true then it will mean a reunion of sorts for EGR Co-Owner Chip Ganassi and McMurray.

McMurray made his Nascar Sprint Cup debut in October of 2002, as a substitute driver for the injured Sterling Marlin, in Chip Ganassi's No 40 Dodge. McMurray also got his first Sprint Cup win, in his second start in the car which was at Charlotte.

In 2004, McMurray would statistically have his best season, by finishing 11th in the championship and scoring an impressive 23 top-ten finishes while driving Chip Ganassi Racing's No 42 Dodge. He would leave the team one season later, being replaced by teammate Casey Mears.

Juan Pablo Montoya, who would go on to replace Casey Mears in the No. 42, will claim Ganassi's best ever Sprint Cup Series Championship Chase result, this season. Sterling Marlin holds Ganassi's best pre-Chase championship standings finish of third in Chip Ganassi Racing's inaugural season.


Racintoday.com is also reporting that former Chip Ganassi Racing driver, Sterling Marlin will hang up his driving gloves following the 2009 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Marlin, who is 52 years old, and has raced for over 30 of those 52 years; compiling 10 wins, 216 top 10's and 11 poles.

“Will I miss it? Yeah, in some ways, But in some ways I’ll kinda be glad when it’s over. The sport has changed. It’s not much fun any more.”

-- Sterling Marlin

Sterling gained international fame by wining back to back Daytona 500's, driving the No 4 Kodak Chevy of Morgan McClure Motorsports, in 1994 and 1995. He now spends much of his time tending the farm, that when he was younger, he wanted to get away from.

And as his career in the bright lights, of Nascar's top Series start to fade away, the one-time terror of Daytona has no regrets and no complaints.

Nascar Fantasy racing is just like the sport.......unpredictable

I have to say that i like playing fantasy sports, especially on Yahoo!, though I'm not really good at it.

So over this Nascar Sprint Cup Series season, i noticed one thing, every driver i picked either didn't do well or they would get involved in a wreck. Out of the 33 Cup weekends so far i have only picked a driver who would go on to win only once, and when you are playing against almost a million other people, who are most likely fans of the same driver as you and doing a lot better then you that isn't something i would be bragging about. And trust me I'm not.

Well while i was making my picks for last weeks 'Dega race, and using most of the drivers that i could for the last time, i was having trouble deciding if i should use some of them, i noticed that the fantasy racing was just like real racing.

You can never know how a driver will fair on a certain weekend, unless the guy is Jimmie Johnson who almost never happens to have a bad weekend anymore, even if you are like me and pick a driver based on how they did on years past.

Yahoo! breaks their Fantasy racing picks into three groups, group A, group B, and group C.
In group A you can only pick two drivers but can only start one, in group B you can pick four drivers but can only start two, and group C you can again pick two drivers bus start only one.
I think how Yahoo! set up their fantasy racing is pretty cool, but the big draw back for me is that you are only allowed to pick a driver nine times for the whole season.

This is how i picked for last weeks race.

In Group A i picked Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle, but i started Jeff Gordon because of how well he did at Talladega in past season. Now Gordon's 20th place finish netted me 62 points, but that ten of those points was because he led 12 laps. had i started Biffle, who had finished 4th, i would have gotten more points but i wouldn't have gotten any extra points since he didn't lead any laps.

In Group B i picked Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Martin Truex Jr, and Micheal Waltrip, however i only started Stewart and Jr. Stewart got me 32 points with 35th place finish and his one lap led, Jr got me 80 points with his 11th place finish and nine laps led. if i had replaced either one with Treux it wouldn't have done any good since he had lead only one lap and finished 31st. If i switching Waltrip with Stwart would have been good since Waltrip lead two laps and finished 7th.

In Group C i picked Marcos Ambrose and Bobby Labonte, but only started Ambrose. Ambrose got me 34 points with his 34th place finish and three laps led. but Labonte would have gotten me more in the end with his 10th place finish, even though he didn't lead any laps.

All my picks got me a race total of 208 points, the highest out of the two Talladega races this season, (and i started almost the same drivers both times), and the second highest points for all four Superspeedway races this season.


Now its easy to sit here and say what i should have done, but if i did chance my picks before race day who is to say that the drivers i decided to change and start wouldn't have done good and the drivers i changed and didn't start would have done better, which has happen to me a few times this season.

All and all Fantasy racing is just like real racing unpredictable.