Promising Talladega Run Ends Early for McMurray, Brewco No. 37 Yard-Man Ford

Talladega, AL (April 29, 2007) – A good qualifying effort and solid early-race run were promising signs for the No. 37 Yard-Man Ford team and Jamie McMurray in Talladega this weekend. But overheating issues and damage sustained in an early wreck put a stop to the solid performance, and the Brewco Motorsports entry ended the Aaron’s 312 in 36th place.

The Brewco team once again had an early qualifying draw of 13th place, but the No. 37 Yard-Man Ford was fast, and McMurray’s time of 52.325 and speed of 183.010 was good enough for the 10th place starting position in the race.

By lap 18 of the event, McMurray had moved up to eighth place but radioed to Crew Chief Newt Moore that the water temperature in the Brewco Ford was climbing and he was trying to get the car into clean air to help lower the temperature. A few laps later the No. 5 car was caught up in a wreck that sent it tumbling down the front stretch. A tire came off the car and knocked into the grill of the No. 37 Yard-Man Ford. McMurray guided the Brewco entry down pit road to allow the Brewco crew to assess the damage.

“We were already having the overheating issues and now we had some damage to the nose of the car,” said Moore. “My Brewco guys did a great job of cooling down the Yard-Man Ford and working on the front of the car to make sure we were getting enough air in and we went back out onto the track.”

However, despite the best efforts of Moore and the Brewco Yard-Man team, the temperature issues remained throughout the race. The team pitted multiple times to cool down the car and prevent it from overheating. However on a pass down pit road on lap 92, the Brewco crew could not get the car cooled down enough to go back out on the track and on lap 95, Crew Chief Moore made the decision to pull the No. 37 Yard-Man Ford back into the garage.

“We had a great car and were moving up through the field, but the overheating issues just put us out of the race,” McMurray said. “I hate it for the Brewco guys, Yard-Man, and the fans, but I know we’ll turn things around next week in Richmond. We tested there back in March and were happy with the results, so I’m looking forward to getting back in the Yard-Man Ford and getting a solid finish. ”

“We’re glad to put April behind us,” said Moore. “We had a really strong run with our sixth-place finish in Phoenix last week, but we had two runs – here in Talladega and back in early April in Nashville – where we had cars good enough to contend for the win and things didn’t go the way we expected. Our whole Brewco team is frustrated that we are not getting the consistently solid finishes that we know we should be getting. The great thing is that Jamie runs well at Richmond and we were happy with our March test there, so we’re all looking forward to this upcoming weekend.”

Next for the No. 37 Yard-Man Ford with driver Jamie McMurray will be the Circuit City 250 presented by FUNAI at Richmond International Raceway on May 4. Television coverage begins at 7:30 pm EST on ESPN2.