ECR engines mop up at the Brickyard
ECR Engines also earned the second, fourth and sixth spots in the final rundown with Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet), Clint Bowyer (No. 33 Wheaties Fuel Chevrolet) and Jeff Burton (No. 31 Prilosec OTC Chevrolet), respectively. EGR's Juan Pablo Montoya earned the pole position the day before in the No. 42 Target Chevrolet. He led the first 16 laps and a total of 86, the most of any competitor, by lap 139 before crashing out of the race with just 15 laps remaining. He finished 32nd. The Racer's Group's Landon Cassill finished 39th in the No. 71 TaxSlayer Chevrolet.
"It's a great day for Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Chevrolet," said Danny Lawrence, trackside manager for ECR. "We work really hard for days like that, so it's very rewarding to run good all day at a race track where the motor means so much. Indy's tight corners and the longest straightaways we run all year long require an engine that has both a lot of torque and power. On top of that, we felt like we were getting good fuel mileage while making good power.
"We had a few different chances with a couple different engines of ours to win there toward the end. Days like that make the race seem longer but we'll take the outcome every time. It's just a great honor to win the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 this year."
The win was the fourth this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for ECR Engines. McMurray kicked off the year with a victory in the Daytona 500, the season's most prestigious event and the first of the triple crown events that also includes the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the Brickyard 400. Harvick then took home the trophies from Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in April and in July at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.
"Man, I tell you, our ECR engines have been unbelievable this year," said McMurray. "I cannot say enough about the engines and the people at ECR that work very hard to ensure all of their teams have the absolute best packages on the race track week to week. It really is something that ECR engines powered a one-two finish at one of NASCAR's most demanding tracks. For that matter, the fact that ECR had four engines inside the top six in the finishing order at Indy is just awesome! Just another notch in ECR and Chevrolet's belt, and not that I'm a stats guy, but someone told me today that this makes eight in a row, and 12 of 17 races at the Brickyard!"
Harvick was trying to earn a second Brickyard 400 trophy after collecting the hardware in 2003. He took the lead from McMurray on lap 145 of 160 but McMurray got by four laps later. A win would have been RCR's third, with Dale Earnhardt winning in 1995.
"We are all extremely proud of the job that ECR has done," said Harvick. "The reliable power has been there, and now that our cars are so much better, it's a lot of fun to come to the race track."
About Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines
Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines is a high performance engine production and research and development company. ECR provides engines for NASCAR teams like Richard Childress Racing, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Kevin Harvick Incorporated and others. ECR also produces engines used in GRAND-AM Rolex Series racing, SCCA Trans-Am and Club Racing, dirt and asphalt short track, and sprint car racing.