McMurray still sore after crash: "It will be a challenge tomorrow"

McMurray found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time after Danica Patrick’s rear end gear failed and saturated the exit of Turn 4 with grease. The driver of the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevy hit the grease and shot into the wall — sans SAFER barrier — before sliding down the front stretch and coming to a stop on the inside wall just short of the exit of pit road. 

WATCH CRASH HERE

On Friday, McMurray was evaluated and released from the infield care center but was experiencing some pain during Saturday’s practices. 

“My elbow is still real sore, but that doesn’t bother me as much as my ribs,” McMurray told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “My ribs hurt really bad today. Obviously, when you get in the seat, the part of the seat that pushes on your ribs is the part you still feel right now.

“Yeah, it will be a challenge tomorrow. My neck and my ribs are really sore right now and this is one of those tracks where you have the highest loads of any where.”

Lack of SAFER barrier "unacceptable"

To Dover’s credit, the track added 479 feet of SAFER barrier in Turn 3 prior to this weekend. But that was of little consolation to McMurray — or Tony Stewart, who hit the grease and the wall just prior to the No. 1 car. 

“That’s unacceptable in this day and time that we have a straight-away — especially at a track like Dover on the outside where we’ve seen just crazy big hits,” McMurray said. “I have no idea why they don’t have that. I assume that we’ll have that by the fall. But yeah, it’s unacceptable that they don’t have that they don’t have that right now.”

To alleviate some of the severity of the force, the No. 1 Ganassi Racing team added six inches of foam to the left side of McMurray’s carbon fiber seat prior to the Saturday’s final practices. 

Although McMurray preferred his primary car to the back up, he improved from 26th on the speed chart in second practice to 17th in single lap speeds in happy hour. At the end of the session, McMurray was 12th in the Best 10 Consecutive Lap Average category with a speed of 152.968 mph. 

Despite the pain, McMurray plans to gut it out in Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism at the Monster Mile. He’s coming off of his best average (5.5) in a season at Dover with after scoring just his second top five (fourth) last fall at the track. 

“I’m just going to do it,” said McMurray, who will start 24th on Sunday. “If we can get the car driving good, that will make it feel better.”