MOTORSPORT: Ambrose faces baptism of fire

And, if he makes the field at Sonoma in California, he could be in for a very rough time.

NASCAR racing has plenty of argy-bargy anyway, but of the sport's specialist road racers, Boris Said, might just be waiting to pay back Ambrose for the way he disposed of him at a race in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series in Mexico in April on the Aussie's way to second place there.

Said was livid about that incident, calling Ambrose's action "a cheap shot" and threatening to retaliate by destroying Ambrose's car in future -- here are some historic links:
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Sonoma will be the first time, and still only potentially, the pair will have been in the same race since that clash on the Mexico City road course.

The irony is that Said, almost 200cm and with a distinctive afro hairstyle, is mates with Paul Morris, with whom Ambrose co-owns the V8 Superschool on the Gold Coast. And Morris has signed the American as part of his squad for this year's V8 Supercar endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst.

Morris will be racing at Sonoma too this weekend in one of the support events, while Said is due to come to Australia in early September for testing in a Holden Commodore ahead of the Phillip Island 500.

Said is not a full-time NASCAR racer but he gets called up for the few road races in the sport. He has made eight NASCAR premier division starts at Sonoma's Infineon Raceway, has posted four top 10 finishes, had pole position in 2003 and is something of a cult figure.

Although Ambrose tried to make light of the incident in Mexico, Said would not have a bar of his apologies and will have been waiting for a return "bout".

Ambrose also made himself unpopular with Sprint Cup leader Kyle Busch in that Nationwide race in Mexico, so he may be a marked man.

Ambrose competes full-time in the Nationwide Series but is scheduled to try to race as well in 12 Sprint Cup races in coming months -- eight with the Wood Brothers team and four with the JTG team for which he races in Nationwide.

His debut will come in a Ford Fusion run by Wood Brothers, NASCAR's oldest team and once one of its iconic outfits but these days, sadly, only a shadow of its former self.

The last of its 97 premier league wins was in 2001 and Ambrose said he hopes to be able to help the Woods "get themselves out of the hole".

Cars in the top 35 of the team owners' "championship" are guaranteed a start at Sonoma, but as Ambrose's car is not among them he must qualify the Fusion on speed if he is to make the field of 43.

His Australian (and European) road racing background should stand him in good stead on the 3.2km circuit if the car preparation is up to the mark.

If Ambrose qualifies Friday he will stay in California for two more practice sessions Saturday, leaving his American mentor driver Robert Pressley to practice and qualify his Nationwide Fusion at Milwaukee in the Midwest. Pressley is a 10-time Nationwide race winner and could race at Milwaukee if Ambrose doesn't get there.

If all goes to plan though Ambrose will fly to Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon for the Nationwide race, which he will have to start from the rear, then return to Sonoma for the Sprint Cup race -- to be screened on Fox Sports from 6.30am to 10.30am eastern Australian time Monday.

If he fails to qualify for his Cup debut in California he will fly to Milwaukee earlier and practice and qualify for the Nationwide race on the 1.6km oval there himself.

His priority obviously is making the race at Sonoma and, in an understatement, he said it was "one of the biggest weeks of my career".

The only Australian to race in NASCAR's main league at Infineon was Dick Johnson, who qualified 11th and finished 32nd in 1989.

Ambrose hopes to become just the sixth Aussie to qualify for a Cup start. The last was Geoff Brabham in 1994 at the first Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The best finish by an Aussie in a Cup race was 18th by Tony Spanos at Martinsville Speedway in 1987.

Among those like Ambrose trying to make the field at Sonoma will be last year's Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti and former Champ Car racer A.J. Allmendinger, while Team Penske's former Indy star Sam Hornish Junior is now assured of a start after a good race at Michigan last weekend.

Another former open-wheeler star, Juan Pablo Montoya, won the Cup race at Sonoma last year, despite leading only seven laps, and will be among the favorites this weekend -- even though he is still only a midfielder in the primarily oval-track series.

If Montoya wants to repeat his Sonoma success in a Chip Ganassi Dodge he will have to contend with NASCAR's best road course drivers Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.

Four-time Cup champion in Chevrolets, Gordon has five wins at Infineon Raceway (and four other road course victories at Watkins Glen in New York), while Stewart is Kyle Busch's teammate in the now oval-dominant Joe Gibbs Toyota squad.

Dale Earnhardt Junior, winner at Michigan last week, has struggled at Sonoma -- his best finish there is 11th in 2003 and '04.

He finished 13th last year after posting his career-best starting spot -- third -- at the circuit.

Part-timer Said is fifth in NASCAR'S Infineon driver ratings -- he always qualifies exceptionally well there (4.3 average start) and has an average finish of 11.7.

It's a big league when Penske runs 7th
Previously we posted here the Forbes magazine list of NASCAR's highest-earning drivers, and now we've come across its rankings of the most valuable Sprint Cup teams.

Forbes estimates Hendrick Motorsports' value at US$335 million, Roush Fenway Racing at US$313 million, Joe Gibbs Racing US$184 million, Gillett Evernham Motorsports US$150 million and Richard Childress Racing US$130 million).

Two other teams rank above US$100 million -- Dale Earnhardt Inc and Penske Racing.

Alonso the pick of Bernie's bunch
Ahead of this weekend's French Grand Prix, Formula 1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone has ranked Fernando Alonso as the best driver in GP racing at the minute -- something with which he agree.

"If he was still in a McLaren he would be showing Lewis (Hamilton) the way home -- I don't think there is any doubt about that," Ecclestone said.

The 77-year-old also told The Times that Polish youngster Robert Kubica, winner of the Canadian GP two weeks ago for BMW-Sauber and now the world championship leader, could be better than Hamilton.

"If you saw him in a McLaren or a Ferrari, I think I'd put my money on him blowing away Hamilton," Ecclestone said.

Here's what he had to say on F1's top guns: timesonline.typepad.com

Hamilton and Williams driver Nico Rosberg will start 10 places behind where they qualify in France because of their pitlane crashes in Canada.

Renault's dual world champion Alonso needs just one point to become only the sixth driver to score 500 points in F1.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, on 491 pints, needs to repeat his French victory of last year to reach that mark.

McLaren has not won in France since David Coulthard's victory in 2000.

Ferrari has won seven times in the past 11 years, including the last two.

Only three times in the past decade has the race been won by the driver on pole position.

Kubica and Alonso are the only drivers to have outqualified their teammates -- Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet Junior respectively -- in every race so far this season.

Felipe Massa has outqualified Raikkonen 5-2 at Ferrari.

Sunday's race, perhaps the last GP at Magny Cours, will mark the 100th anniversary of Mercedes-Benz's first race victory -- way before F1 began.

Germany's Christian Lautenschlager won the French GP in Dieppe in 1908 in a Benz.

Just weeks after the collapse of Super Aguri, there is speculation about another possible Honda satellite team headed by American engineer Ken Anderson involved.

Anderson was reportedly a Honda guest at the Canadian GP and the Japanese manufacturer is said to be prepared to sell engines, gearboxes and KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) to the mooted team.

Anderson was said to be meeting Bernie Ecclestone this week, to have Honda North America's support as well as other backers within the US, with Takuma Sato intended to be the lead driver and Portugal's Alvaro Parente the other.

All sounds too grand to be true.

And we're reserving any comment today on the renewal of the Australian GP contract, pending Victorian government meetings early next week.

From the world of rallying ...
Rally Queensland -- one of the stalwart events of the Australian championship, having been run every year except one since 1968 -- is on this weekend in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Toss a coin whether series leader Neal Bates or teammate Simon Evans, national champion the past two years, win for Toyota.

Darren Windus, third in the series to date in a Subaru, reverts to a Ford Fiesta for this round over 243 competitive kilometres in 18 special stages.

One of the highlights of the weekend is likely to be the appearance of Australia's world championship driver Chris Atkinson spectating during the six-week break in the international calendar.

Meanwhile, moves are afoot for a new tarmac event in Tasmania -- an Australia Day weekend hillclimb on Hobart's Mt Wellington.

The first proposal from Mountain Motorsports -- which has run Victoria's Mt Buller Sprint and Lake Mountain Sprint -- has been rejected by the Hobart city council, but a revised plan is expected to be put forward in August.

China's top rally driver, Xu Lang, died of head trauma after an accident this week during the fifth leg of the Transoriental Rally in Russia.

Xu, 31, was hit in the face by the tow hook of a trailer trying to drag his submerged off-roader out of mud.

A medical team arrived by helicopter 26 minutes later but Xu, a driver for the Nissan Zhengzhou Corp team and who was not wearing his helmet when struck by the tow hook, was pronounced dead at a hospital in Orenburg.

Xu finished 19th in the 2006 Dakar Rally -- the best result by a Chinese driver in the world's most gruelling event.

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