McMurray's bittersweet win, Stewart's tiff and more

	Jamie McMurray is destined to become a trivia answer for years to come: He's the last winner of a restrictor plate race. AP

The post-July 4th weekend at Daytona Beach was a series of good news, bad news for the players in NASCAR.

The good news: Jamie McMurray broke a 166-race winless drought, and while earning a rare restrictor plate race for Roush Fenway Racing.

The bad news: This was the very last car of today restrictor plate race. When the NASCAR Nextel Cup series hits Talladega Speedway this fall, they'll have the new Car of Tomorrow. That means all of the hard work done by the team to win a restrictor plate race is worth as much as an expired license plate.

Maybe there really is good news -- after the race, Jack Roush admitted that he was complacent because his teams had dominated on the 1.5-mile tracks. "We kind of got behind," he said. Now there is a dedicated test team, like Hendrick Motorsports, and Roush is taking the Car of Tomorrow more seriously.

The good news: Kyle Busch almost earned a place in racing trivia, winning two NASCAR races in one day. "Shrub" won the rain-postponed Winn-Dixie 250 on Saturday morning and narrowly missed winning the Pepsi 400 by five-thousandths of a second to McMurray.

The bad news: Kyle Busch narrowly missed winning the Pepsi 400 because, he says, he didn't receive crucial help from his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jeff Gordon. In a post-race interview, Busch complained "there was a few opportunities to get behind me and help me, the 24 especially. ... Jeff I think was clear or was clear the lap later and could have came down and helped us and got three Hendrick cars in a row -- me, him and the 48 -- but chose not to do so and chose to stay up high and help another Roush car." Ouch!

More bad news: Busch feels like he's being shunned by the team after they declined to renew his contract in favor of adding Dale Earnhardt Jr. next year. "Walking down pit road, saying congratulations to Jeff Gordon, I got blown off so I guess I'm the outsider looking in now, and I'm probably not going to be invited into the team meetings next week; so I think bliss is over at Hendrick Motorsports for Kyle Busch," he said.

And even more bad news from Kyle's brother: If Kyle feels he's not getting help from his teammate, brother Kurt says (about restrictor plate closing laps) "for Kyle the advice I'd have is you're out there working as an individual, that Hendrick is fielding your cars and there's not much you can do to help the other guys. So therefore you shouldn't expect much help from the other guys."

More, but, different bad news: Tony Stewart's bid for a three-peat in Daytona was thwarted by incident involving his teammate and last week's winner in New Hampshire -- Denny Hamlin. Both drivers are not feeling warm and fuzzy about each other. Stewart said, "he tried to crash us on Friday in practice and didn't get it done so he finished it off today." On the other hand, his response to a question of ongoing teammate problems isn't very optimistic when he said "No, I mean he's a young guy and he wants to be successful, but I don't know if he knows the definition of 'team' right now."

The good news: Hamlin seems to take the bullet for the crash -- "I do (know the meaning of teammates). I figured I did but I'm going to be the bigger man, and I'll take the blame on this. If he wants to blame it on me, I'll be the bigger man. I'll take responsibility for it. He's been around this sport longer than I have; and he probably knows more than I do so I'll just take it, for what it's worth."

Racing's a tough sport, it's the kind of game where a solid second-place run is called by many "first loser." Very few people outside of McMurray were feeling pretty well as the series moves on.

Key Moment

McMurray ironic decision to "help" a rival team. He explained after the race "when I saw all the Hendrick cars, I think Jeff was leading and the 25 (Casey Mears) was second and the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) was behind me, I was just pretty much committed to pushing those guys, because I felt like if I pulled out of line that I would only go backwards. But the way everything worked out, I got good pushes."

Surprise Development

After this year's wild finish to the Daytona 500, can a fan really be surprised by the Pepsi 400 finish?

By the Numbers

The .005 second margin of victory tied as the second-closest in NASCAR's Cup history. The closest margin involved Ricky Craven, who beat Kurt Busch by .002 at Darlington in March 2003. This was McMurray's second victory, and 27th for a Ford at Daytona. Thirty cars were running at the end of the 400-mile race.

Spinning My Wheels

Indy Rassling League? One of the more bizarre scenes in auto racing occurred on Sunday evening at the conclusion of the Indy Car Series road race at Watkins Glen. After a bumping incident in a turn, which might have just one of those racing deals in a Nextel Cup race, Tony Kanaan and Sam Hornish Jr. entered pit lane with tempers flaring. As both battered racers entered the pits, side-by-side, Kanaan's Andretti Green racer swerved toward Hornish's Penske Racing car.

The biggest temper flaring was that of Hornish's dad, Sam Hornish Sr. At first, he appeared to step in between the two rival drivers to restrain his son. Only Kanaan kept walking toward Hornish Jr. and attempted to have words with his rival driver. Then Hornish Sr. turned his attention on Kanaan and there was some shoving. At some point, Hornish's dad was shoved to the ground, apparently, by an Andretti Green team member and, in a good old-fashioned bench clearing-type clash it seemed like most of the teams were involved requiring many series officials to separate the combatants. Series official, John Griffin, vice president of public relations for the Indy Racing League, says "sanctions will be handed down after we see the video."