McMurray celebrated his Daytona 500 win in February with tears

McMurray celebrated his Daytona 500 win in February with tears "It takes 50 seconds to go around there (for a lap) and the last 50 seconds at whenever Indy was probably just one of the coolest things ever for me, to savor that," he said.

Even so, Daytona was not far from McMurray's thoughts Saturday night after he passed Kyle Busch on a restart and led the final 21 laps.

McMurray celebrated his Daytona 500 win in February with tears. It was understandable. He had lost his ride the year before at Roush Fenway Racing when that organization had to cut a team to meet NASCAR's four-team requirement. The promise of a rising career had faded until that Daytona 500 win.