With his sponsor gone and a pending NASCAR rule ready to dismantle his race team, there's not a bit of surprise in the NASCAR world that Jamie McMurray's time is likely ending with Roush Fenway Racing.
There's no shock, no outcry and nothing being written saying McMurray shouldn't have drawn the short stick in RFR's transition to the NASCAR-mandated four-team cap in 2010, and the reasoning is quite simple.
Why? It's as simple as looking at the incredibly unimpressive numbers Jamie McMurray has compiled since his Roush debut in 2006.
What with Tony Stewart going it on his own just fine, thank you; Kyle Busch smashing trophies in victory lane; Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggling to live up to his hype; 50-year old Mark Martin winning races; and Hendrick Motorsports being, well ... Hendrick Motorsports, the once dominant Roush Fenway Ford team finds itself on NASCAR's attention periphery here at the midseason point.
Let's take a quick glance at some of the Richmond post-race storylines:
"We lost the brakes."
Jimmie Johnson, as Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway proved, isn't the racing robot with a switch stuck on "Dominate" we've come to think he is after three-straight Sprint Cup titles. Nope, not even at a track where he's won three of the last four events before Saturday night's race.
In fact, it was an all-around miserable night for the No. 48 after brake problems caused him to spin once, get caught up in another crash and then race the rest of the way with a damaged race car. Unfortunately for the rest of the competition, his 36th-place finish won't be a barometer of his 2009 season.
Just weeks ago, the name Matt Kenseth was the only available substitute for '2009 Sprint Cup winner'.
The Roush Fenway Racing driver picked up the Harley J. Earl Trophy for winning the rain-soaked Daytona 500 and followed it up a week later with a 'W' in the season's second race at Auto Club Speedway.
Since then, however, Kenseth has fallen through the standings at a clip rivaling a Ryan Newman qualifying lap.
A little off-week fishing turned into a big headache -- or rib-ache, if you will -- for Roush Fenway Racing's driver Greg Biffle.
Biffle, slated to drive in both the Sprint Cup Series' Food City 500 on Sunday and the Nationwide Series' Scotts Turf Builder 300 on Saturday for RFR, will now sit out the Saturday event to rest a sore set of ribs after the No. 16 Ford driver fell awkwardly -- he termed it a "freak accident" -- while trying to get off a boat Tuesday night.
Judging from his remarks Friday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway's half-mile, Biffle wasn't too proud of the way he injured himself.
(Yes, that picture IS the most ridiculous one you've ever seen. Anyways, back to the regularly scheduled programming...)
Jimmie Johnson looked a chef in the final laps of the Dickie's 500 at Texas Motor Speedway Sunday night.
First, he sat Matt Kenseth on the table with a charge to his rear bumper with 15 laps to go.
Then, Johnson backed off and let Kenseth cool down -- as well as the tires on his No. 48 -- and read the perfect recipe for the win.
With four circuits left, Johnson pounced with a knife, cutting into Kenseth's lead and finally cutting him off out of turn two, grabbing the race lead and showing the No. 48 team's brilliance in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Well, I napped through most of today's Busch Series race in Nashville, but don't seem to have missed much.
I remember the pre-show--I was awake long enough to be annoyed by Nashville recording artist Julie Roberts' oversing of the National Anthem.
I vaguely remember Rusty Wallace talking about his son Steven being on the pole ... then things start to get fuzzy.
I woke up to Carl Edwards getting out of his car in victory lane.
Without a single practice lap on the track this weekend, the series points leader won the race--his third consecutive at the track, fourth on the season.
The always gracious driver dedicated his win to the France family, thanked his team, sponsors, etc.
Then he gave his Gibson guitar trophy away to Roush Fenway teammate David Ragan's brother. That was nice. It just might be awhile before Ragan brings one home.
A few weeks ago, you could find each of these drivers in the Top 10 in NASCAR Nextel Cup Standings. For two of them, that is no more, and for one, two more weeks of horrendous finishes would make the three 3 for 3. Here's how it happened -- and cue the Tom Petty.
Jeff Burton Following his win four races ago at Texas, Burton sat just 8 points behind point leader Jeff Gordon and looking poised to continue his surge to the top. The next week at Phoenix, Burton's team never got a good handle on his Impala, but managed a 13th-place finish. At Talladega, a crash took Burton out of the race after qualifying 42nd and then Sunday at Richmond, the team blew a motor.
Result: Burton now sits 5th in points, 339 points behind Gordon.
When Geoff Smith, the president of Roush Fenway Racing, decided to discuss with the NASCAR media about Greg Biffle's contract situation, he must have felt that explaining how Biffle was involved with negotiations would put out some fires. Instead, it apparently lit a fire under Greg Biffle. Said Biffle:
"The biggest thing that's been a bit of a deterrent for me is that Geoff Smith put in the paper that we're negotiating -- Roush and Greg Biffle -- an extension. And in my eyes there was no reason for that. I'm under contract."
Biffle says that many, many teams have been lighting up his cell phone inquiring about the status of the negotiations and if he'd be interested in discussing other options. Apparently, a bunch of those teams thought that his contract expired at the end of this year, when the true story is it lasts through 2008.
Think about it on Biffle's end. The guy is still under contract with Roush for more than a season and a half, but yet his own team is setting him for questions and controversy. That's just gotta suck.
Biffle is a senior guy at Roush now with the departure of Mark Martin and Roush would crazy to let him go. Right now, it sounds like he's easily, and happily, on the road to extending his currect contract for many a year to drive the Fords.
Yesterday, I was all set to talk about how Chevy is kicking everybody's ass with the car of tomorrow. Ford driver Greg Biffle and the stats would even back me up.
"We were probably the best in 2005 as a manufacturer, and then in '06 and '07 Chevrolet is back up top where they've been most of the time. And it's not really a surprise to us to see that they're running as well as they are. They've got a bunch of great teams – Gibbs, Hendrick, Childress just off the top are very, very strong race teams. Technically, there's one of us, if you will. We have Roush and Yates over in the Ford camp. If you were to say we had three Roush conglomerates all running Fords, then the tables might be balanced a little different, but they've got three strong, strong teams and three strong teams with good drivers driving Chevys. That's something we know we have to battle. They've been a little bit better at it and, let's face it, you take Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and all those guys and feeding a little bit of information back to Chevrolet, it'll trickle around to those teams a little bit faster. But in our organization all we have is us – we have our five teams to gather that information and use it within ourselves. It's tough to beat the odds. The odds are there are more Chevrolet teams and better cars."
The race stats definitely speak to that:
The Impalas ran the show at Bristol, leading 487 of 504 laps and finishing with eight cars in the Top 10 positions. It was more of the same in Martinsville where the Chevys led 489 of 500 laps and took the top seven positions.
But testing headlines don't tell a story of dominance:
With his sponsor gone and a pending NASCAR rule ready to dismantle his race team, there's not a bit of surprise in the NASCAR world that Jamie McMurray's time is likely ending with Roush Fenway Racing.
Let's take a quick glance at some of the Richmond post-race storylines:
Just weeks ago, the name 
A little off-week fishing turned into a big headache -- or rib-ache, if you will -- for 
Well, I napped through most of today's Busch Series race in Nashville, but don't seem to have missed much.
A few weeks ago, you could find each of these drivers in the Top 10 in NASCAR Nextel Cup Standings. For two of them, that is no more, and for one, two more weeks of horrendous finishes would make the three 3 for 3. Here's how it happened -- and cue the Tom Petty.
When Geoff Smith, the president of Roush Fenway Racing, decided to discuss with the NASCAR media about Greg Biffle's contract situation, he must have felt that explaining how Biffle was involved with negotiations would put out some fires. Instead, it apparently 
Yesterday, I was all set to talk about how Chevy is kicking everybody's ass with the car of tomorrow. Ford driver Greg Biffle and the stats would even back me up.
