NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 2, 2016
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway along with Andrew Barberena who is a senior at Martinsville High School. He is in the engineering program at the school and is the captain of the robotics team he is also taking some night classes at Patrick Henry Community College in their motorsports program. This weekend Andrew will serve as an honorary crew member on the No. 1 Chevrolet SS team. McMurray discussed racing on short tracks growing up, the increase on the importance of engineering in NASCAR and many other topics. Selected Racing Related questions and answers:
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST FONDLY ABOUT RUNNING SHORT TRACKS GROWING UP?
“Honestly, as I was driving up here this weekend, I didn’t bring my little boy with me this weekend. I drove up by myself. Driving to the race track that is one of the things that you did as a short track driver. You literally got into a truck. I drove the dually that we had to the race track a lot of the weekends or when we did late model touring series. So, not only is this track closer to what we grew up racing on, but everything about the weekend as far as literally driving to the track is the same way. Martinsville weekend for me and I’ve said this every time I get interviewed about Martinsville. The two weekends that we come here they are two of my favorite weekends of the year for multiple reasons.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT DRIVING FROM THOSE EXPERIENCES?
“I don’t know that I could point out something that I learned just from late model racing. I think that everything that you race whether it’s go-karting, late models, whatever it is as you are growing up to me the things you learn, the discipline of working on your car, passing, restarts, green flag pit stops as you are coming along. There are just a lot of things that until you get to be a part of it it’s hard to teach yourself. I don’t know that it’s just about late models as much as everything you race up to really getting into the Truck Series, you use all of that once you get here.”
DO YOU HAVE TO FOCUS MORE HERE THAN YOU WOULD SOMEWHERE ELSE?
“No, to me whether you go to Daytona or Talladega versus coming here are probably the two biggest extremes or maybe a road course. I mean the weekends are approached exactly the same. There are different things you have to do at different tracks, but no, I think it’s pretty much the same each weekend. You just kind of focus on maybe what has happened over the last couple of races at this track and the experiences that you have had.”
OVER YOUR YEARS RACING THINGS HAVE CHANGED A LOT AT THE SPRINT CUP LEVEL WITH THE ENGINEERING EXPLOSION. IS THIS SORT OF DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU REMEMBER ABOUT RACING FROM THE EARLY PARTS OF YOUR CAREER WHERE IT HAS CHANGED?
“So when we () were in the back before we came up here Andrew and his teacher were asking me about camber and they said they saw how much camber the cars had in them here. He asked ‘is this the most camber you run everywhere’. I started thinking about it and I kind of ‘bs’ed’ my way around it and then I finally said ‘I really don’t know.’ I used to be very involved in set-up’s and I felt like you knew everything about not only your car, but your teammates cars and you would think about it. It has evolved so much and with the simulation now, like we changed four or five things on our car and it’s crazy they hit simulate the lap and it tells you that it should be tighter at this part in the corner, it should be freer in this part of the corner and it’s right. It has changed so much. Not only since I came along, but really in the last five years probably. I think Andrew has a goal of being in racing. I’m going to preach this to my kids and everyone in here’s partners preached it to them. When you get into algebra and geometry and you are like ‘I don’t want to do this, how am I ever going to use this later on.’ I hope that kids now can see if you want to be a part of NASCAR that is so critical to understand that, especially if you want to be in engineering. If you want to be a part of this and make a difference you have got to really educate yourself now so you can understand what is going to happen in the future.”
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