In 2002, Jamie McMurray was a little-known Busch Series driver who had just been tabbed for a full-time Cup ride with Chip Ganassi Racing.

He had yet to win a NASCAR race, but Ganassi looked at this driver and saw a lot of promise. Shortly after announcing that McMurray would move into the Cup series full time the following season, Ganassi underwent a change of fortune with his Cup program.

Sterling Marlin, who had been leading the points, suffered a devastating neck injury that ended his run. McMurray stepped into the car and, in his second career Cup start, won at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Now, as a driver for Roush Fenway Racing, he returns to the track looking for more success.

He has already earned a berth in this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race by virtue of his win at Daytona International Speedway last July. He’s led 139 career laps at Lowe’s, the most he has led at any track.

McMurray is 23rd in the Cup standings entering the non-points race, overcoming a lackluster start to the year in recent weeks.

He’s coming off a solid outing at Darlington Raceway, where he finished 11th, and says that his team is looking forward to racing near home the next couple of weeks as the series moves from the all-star weekend to the Coca-Cola 600 at the Lowe's track the following week, a race.

McMurray ran well in a recent test session at the track and is optimistic entering the weekend.

“I think we really have a pretty good shot this coming weekend,” he said. “The all-star race is a perfect race – it’s 100 laps where the guys give it all – 100 percent effort into every lap, because when it comes down to it, we are not only racing for pride, but for a million dollars.”

McMurray said that during the recent NASCAR test session at the track, he and his team were able to post solid times, even on old tires. They ran well in the day and night sessions, fostering more confidence for the team.

So while the team has undergone some setbacks, the recent points climb and testing results has helped them regain momentum as they prepare for two weeks of racing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

“This season we aren’t in the position we wanted to be in entering the All-Star break, but I feel like we’ve had some really good runs to this point that have just ended with being caught up in a wreck,” crew chief Larry Carter said. “At the test, I really feel like as a company we learned a lot about this new car and how to pick up speed at these intermediate tracks. If we can take some of the information we learned last week and transfer that into the car we are taking, I think we’ll have a pretty good run this weekend.”