James Christopher McMurray (born June 3, 1976), nicknamed "Jamie Mac",[1] is an American former professional stock car racing driver and currently an analyst for Fox NASCAR.

However, he was instead tapped as interim replacement for injured Ganassi Cup driver Sterling Marlin, who fractured a vertebra in a crash at Kansas Speedway.

One week later, at Charlotte, in just his second career NASCAR Winston Cup and first non-restrictor plate start, McMurray outraced the Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiacs of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart to win the UAW-GM Quality 500.

McMurray drove for six of the remaining seven races, except for the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville, with Mike Bliss driving as scheduled in the No.

If he had made the playoff field, McMurray would have finished the year 4th in points due to strong performance in the Chase races.

He had 23 Top 10s during the season, including 12 in the last 14 races, and finished eleventh in the points standings, which earned him a $1 million bonus.

McMurray came in tenth in points with a one-point cushion over Ryan Newman in the final race before the chase at Richmond International Raceway.

On lap 1, he was passed by Robby Gordon for the lead but he spent the first quarter of the race holding off Boris Said and Jeff Burton for second place.

In the beginning of the 2008 season, McMurray encountered a string of poor finishes that relegated him to 36th in points[13] and thus not guaranteed a spot[14] when NASCAR reached the spring Martinsville race.

[18] McMurray started the 2009 season by dominating the final stages of the Budweiser Shootout, but finished second when he lost the lead to Kevin Harvick on the last lap.

In the Daytona 500, McMurray ran up front and was a contender, but was involved in the big one, and his teammate Matt Kenseth won the race.

He led for only two laps, the least in Daytona 500 history at the time, passing Kevin Harvick with 2 to go before holding off Greg Biffle and a rapidly charging Dale Earnhardt Jr. McMurray cried in victory lane and thanked Ganassi and his new sponsors for giving him another chance.

McMurray almost won the Aaron's 499 that spring, but Kevin Harvick beat him in a .011-second drag race to the finish line.

It was speculated by McMurray's car owner Felix Sabates that Harvick went below the yellow line when he made the pass but this was denied by NASCAR.

[20] In May, McMurray ended up second to Kurt Busch in the Coca-Cola 600 and had several more top ten finishes before in July, McMurray held off Harvick again to win the Brickyard 400, which made him one of only three drivers to win the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same year, the feat previously having been accomplished by Jimmie Johnson in 2006 and Dale Jarrett in 1996.

The next week, in Phoenix, McMurray had an accident before blowing an engine; he then posted two straight 7th-place finishes at both Las Vegas and Bristol.

In October, McMurray held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to win at Talladega, snapping a 108-race winless streak.

McMurray had a slow start to the 2014 season, finishing 14th at Daytona after a last lap crash, though he posted a Top 10 at Fontana.

After starting in the Top 10, McMurray controlled 40% of the 90 lap race, passed leader Carl Edwards on the final restart, and held off Kevin Harvick for $1,370,400.

However, he experienced a good streak of races, a 10th at Martinsville, a sixth at Texas, a 14th at Bristol, and a fourth at Richmond where it looked like McMurray was one of the only drivers who could challenge winner Kurt Busch.

On September 19, 2015, McMurray joined NASCAR on NBC for the Xfinity Series race at Chicagoland as a guest analyst.

However a spin at Indy, and Chris Buescher winning at Pocono didn't help, although McMurray still finished in the top 20 for both races.

He would then score three eighth-place finishes in row, at Watkins Glen, Bristol, and Michigan, allowing McMurray to slip past Ryan Newman in the chase standings.

Eventually, Newman still looked to be in contention before he was penalized for failing an inspection and docked a significant number of points, giving McMurray a big advantage over Newman going into the Fall Richmond race, which Denny Hamlin won, and McMurray finished seventh, narrowly clinching the 16th and final Chase spot.

Poor finishes at Chicagoland and New Hampshire put him in a must-win situation at Dover, unfortunately, McMurray's engine exploded midway through the race, ending his Chase hopes.

McMurray would survive the night race at Daytona to finish 14th, ahead of all drivers in front of him in the points with the exception of Jimmie Johnson.

The 2018 season became McMurray's worst since 2011 and 2012, having scored top-fives at the 2018 O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas in April, and the Charlotte Roval, along with 8 top-10s.

The 2018 season also saw McMurray involved in a seven-flip rollover accident at Talladega Superspeedway during practice for the GEICO 500, leading to NASCAR attempting to reduce speeds for the race by changing the restrictor plates used.

[30][31] McMurray would ultimately retire from full-time Cup Series racing and later signed a contract with Fox Sports to appear on their weekday and raceday NASCAR programs, in addition to his leadership role with Ganassi.

[42] Following his win at Charlotte in 2010, McMurray said in his post-race interview, "As those laps were winding down, I was thinking about Daytona and why I cry and the power of prayer.