McMurray, Wingo reunion part of building 26 team (cont'd)

Pole qualifying on Sunday put McMurray 26th on the sheet, but he said that was "irrelevant because where you start is based on how you race on Thursday in the Gatorade Duel, so we'll see." That's where their performance Saturday night comes back to the fore.

"It's been good, and it's been good all week. The car was good in practice and everything's just kinda clicked," Wingo said through a big grin immediately after the Shootout. "This is a good race team and I feel very fortunate to be a part of it. Everybody's pulled together and built good race cars -- we [Roush Fenway teams] all had good cars [Saturday] night."

Budweiser Shootout

Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet
2.	Jamie McMurray	Ford
3.	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet
4.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
5.	A.J. Allmendinger	Dodge
6.	Kasey Kahne	Dodge
7.	Carl Edwards	Ford
8.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
9.	Kurt Busch	Dodge
10.	Kyle Busch	Toyota

• Results | Videos | Gallery

The Shootout was McMurray and Wingo's first race together in more than three years, and they came within half of a lap and tenths of a second of winning.

"We had a pretty effective piece," Wingo said. "In the first practice [Friday] night we were a little off, but in the second practice we made a couple changes and the car really came to life. We made one little adjustment [Saturday] night on the last stop but other than that it was good all night and he never complained about it pushing like you always get here after a long run -- we just came up a little short."

It's got McMurray on the proverbial Cloud Nine, particularly since his reunion also includes his spotter while he was at Ganassi's, Lorin Ranier.

"To get to have both of them back at the same time, it's very comforting; it's really hard for me to explain to you the comfort or the confidence I have in those two guys," McMurray said. "I feel like when we ran at Ganassi we ran really well and I didn't think we had near as good of equipment as what we do right now at Roush Fenway."

But the bottom line is the framework that Carter built last season at the No. 26 car -- before swapping over to Roush Fenway ally Yates Racing to work with Paul Menard -- may end up anchoring a breakout career year for McMurray, which would coincide for Wingo.

"I just have a lot of good memories with Donnie," McMurray said. "With people, you either remember the good or the bad and I had so many good times with him and I've remained good friends with him. We live in the same neighborhood, less than a mile from each other. In the three or four years I [was] away from Donnie we remained really good friends and I think that's really important."

Back in the fall of 2008, Roush Fenway general manager Robbie Reiser came to McMurray and said the organization was thinking of transferring Carter to Yates and asked what did McMurray think?

"When they first talked about it, I considered it a promotion for Larry, but I said 'No, I didn't want to go through it again because I've been through it three or four times at Roush and I'm happy right now. But then they told me that Donnie was gonna be my guy. (Continued)