Morning Man: Jamie McMurray!

So I was watching a little bit of Regis and Kelly yesterday and out walks the winner of Sunday’s Daytona 500: Jamie McMurray. Now I could care less about auto racing but boy, what a cutie!

The 33-year-old from Joplin, Mo. held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the biggest race of his career. It could not have been more different from a year earlier when he was eliminated from contention after he was involved in the race’s biggest crash.

Since the victory, he’s been on something of a media blitz (he also appeared on Letterman – see video below) and has suddenly become a celebrity.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been recognized,” Jamie said on a national conference call Tuesday from New York. “I can’t believe in just the 24 hours that I’ve been here the amount of people that have found me and have brought their USA Today paper up and had me sign it. I can’t believe how popular that race is and how, by winning it, how many people realize who you are all of a sudden.”

“I don’t really care about sleep right now,” he said. “I’m just enjoying the moment.”