MOTORSPORT: Ambrose makes mark in US

The 2003 and '04 V8 Supercar champion won his first race in American stock car racing, in the second-tier Nationwide Series, at the famous 3.94km Watkins Glen road course and followed up with third place, after starting last, in the round of the premier Sprint Cup series there the next day.

While Ambrose is now two-thirds of the way through his second full season in the Nationwide Series, that Sprint Cup start was only his third in the Big League.

By any standards, they were two excellent performances.

The Nationwide field at the Glen contained 20 Sprint Cup drivers and Ambrose headed home Kyle Busch, who we have argued here recently can lay strong claim to being the best race driver in the world this year.

In the Sprint Cup race only Busch and his teammate Tony Stewart in the awesome Joe Gibbs team's Toyotas finished ahead of Ambrose's Ford Fusion -- and, when the race was stopped eight laps short of the scheduled 90 because of a huge pile-up, the Aussie was in front of the Dodge of Juan Pablo Montoya, an ex-Formula 1 star and multiple grand prix winner, as well as a CART (predecessor of Champ Car) champion and an Indianapolis 500 winner.

Ambrose had his share of luck this weekend -- Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and another top runner Jeff Burton ran out of fuel while ahead of him in the Nationwide race, he side-swiped another car and bent his steering late in that race and avoided last-lap trouble with arch-foe Boris Said, and then avoided the nine-car smash in the Sprint Cup race -- but he had endured more than enough misfortune previously in North America.

So it was a great breakthrough that hopefully will be the start of a lot more success for the Tasmanian Devil in perhaps the hardest form of car racing on earth.

As so often happens in these situations, the extent of what Ambrose has just achieved has been exaggerated in some places, most notably The Australian newspaper, where Ambrose's spokesman Brett Murray was quoted as saying: "This (Nationwide) win is as big as Alan Jones winning the F1 title in 1980 in terms of achievement."

That is utter nonsense. Jones conquered the world, over a whole season, in what was unquestionably the most important motor racing series at that time.

What Ambrose has done over the past couple of days has been fantastic; no doubt about that. He is the first Australian to win in any form of NASCAR.

All the more commendable in that he has done it with two teams that are not "majors" in NASCAR -- certainly not in modern NASCAR.

The Nationwide team he won with, JTG Daugherty Racing, had not won for 12 years -- since Jeff Fuller, who raced NASCAR in Australia in the 1990s, won at Bristol Motor Speedway in late August 1996.

The Sprint Cup team for which he was third, Wood Brothers, was once one of the powerhouses of NASCAR but has been but a shadow of its former self for many years now.

Ambrose's podium at the Glen was the best result for the Woods since Ricky Rudd finished fourth at Bristol in late August 2005.

Again we highlight that Ambrose beat the brilliant Kyle Busch in the Nationwide round -- and Busch has now won 16 races this year in NASCAR's various forms.

He made history at Watkins Glen by becoming the first NASCAR driver to win three Sprint Cup road-course races in the same year when scored his eighth premier division victory of the season.

However, as good as Ambrose's performances were at the Glen -- and previously on road courses in Mexico, at Sonoma in California and Montreal in Canada -- the big challenge still ahead of him is to consistently finish high up -- and win -- in Sprint Cup races on the oval tracks that are predominant in NASCAR.

When he's doing that, perhaps we might be able to compare his feats with those of Alan Jones in F1.

While Ambrose is rightfully proud of what he's done since he gave up the security of his V8 Supercar drive to tackle NASCAR he is also well aware of what more he has to do to be judged to have really made it in American stock car racing.

"I don't want to be labelled a road racer," Ambrose said after the Glen. "I am 10th in the Nationwide Series points, so I'm trying to make it as a NASCAR driver full stop, not just a road racer."

Ambrose has several more Sprint Cup rounds ahead of him this season, as well as the rest of the Nationwide Series.

His prizemoney from the two series this year is now more than US$1.16 million and he will be racing in rounds of both again this coming weekend at Michigan International Speedway.

Next year he will race full-time in the Cup with JTG Daugherty Racing, owned by Tad and Jodi Geschickter who have recently added former top basketballer Brad Daugherty as a partner.

There is a fair chance that team, which may just be going places, will field a make of car other than the Fords with which Ambrose has been synonymous to date.

He revealed that when he gambled on making the moves to the States he was prepared to wait two years to get a break in NASCAR.

"I was prepared to sit on the sidelines for two years without a ride and just turn up in NASCAR world and try to forge my way into the sport," Ambrose said.

"I was committed. I feel liked I've learned a lot (in 84 NASCAR starts -- 22 in the Craftsman Truck Series, 59 in Nationwide and three in the Sprint Cup).

"Two and a half years in America -- I was pretty used to winning down home, I was a two-time champion and won a lot of races -- so I had to eat a little humble pie when I came here and just learn the craft.

"It's a very different discipline, NASCAR racing, even on a road course. The cars are very difficult to drive and set up. You have to be very aggressive the whole day.

"You've got to forget about getting a car to handle well; you've just got to race the heck out of it. You've got to be careful out there, and at the same time you can't be soft because people take advantage of you.

"You've got to commit yourself to try to win, you've got to use all the car up, you've got use all the track up -- and sometimes other people."

Saturday's Nationwide victory, after qualifying 12th, was "a big relief".

"It felt like I'd conquered a huge mountain," Ambrose said. "I needed that win to really justify my move to the US.

"I've come from a winning deal down home; big fish in a pretty small pond, to be honest, and I've come across and taken on the best in the business in NASCAR.

"And the field was tough -- there were a lot of really good drivers and really good cars, and a lot of Cup teams in that race.

"We didn't luck into it. We deserved it. We worked hard for it. I didn't have quite enough car -- we didn't quite hit the set-up the way we wanted it, but we had enough to stay with them.

"I couldn't race quite as hard as I wanted, but the race came our way."

Dario Franchitti, the former Champ Car driver who won last year's Indianapolis 500, had qualified on pole for the Nationwide race and finished fifth.

Sunday's back-of-the-field start in the Sprint Cup for Ambrose was because qualifying was rained out and the line-up was decided on owner points, although he had shown signs of what was to come when he topped the second practice session and was third in the final session.

"Coming through the field is really hard work," he said after his storming race drive. "I had no clutch left, no brakes left.

"It felt like I passed everyone three times. Some guys, just through the cycle of pit stops, I did pass three or four times. We passed quite a few on the track, we passed quite a few in the pits, too, just with our strategy. I wasn't overtaken all day, which I'm proud of, and we did a lot of passing.

"When you have a weekend like this, it just validates the choices that I've made to come across here and have a go at it. It's a big, bad world NASCAR, and I'm just pleased that I'm able to have a weekend like this to remember.

"When it's all said and done, I'll be able to go home back to Tasmania and tell them how good I was at Watkins Glen one year."

Indeed he will, but even better will be if he can come home having conquered the oval tracks -- and America's best drivers on them.

NASCAR Nationwide Series after 24 of 35 rounds - Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet) 3448 points, Brad Keselowski (Chevrolet) 3320, Carl Edwards (Ford) 3274, David Reutimann (Toyota) 3158, David Ragan (Ford) 3147, Mike Bliss (Chevrolet) 3068, Kyle Busch (Toyota) 3003, Mike Wallace (Toyota) 2845, Jason Leffler (Toyota) 2784, Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 2776.

NASCAR Sprint Cup - Kyle Busch (Toyota) 3254, Carl Edwards (Ford) 3012, Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 3010, Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 2985, Jeff Burton (Chevrolet) 2945, Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet) 2754, Tony Stewart (Toyota) 2744, Kasey Kahne (Dodge) 2713, Denny Hamlin (Toyota) 2689, Greg Biffle (Ford) 2689, Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 2670, Matt Kenseth (Ford) 2628.

Webber worried about KERS safety
Formula 1 drivers are concerned about the safety of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) to be introduced next year after BMW-Sauber has not been able to explain the reason its system gave a mechanic an electric shock recently during testing.

"There is a report coming from BMW about what happened there, but the rumour is they haven't a clue why it happened," Australia's F1 driver Mark Webber told Autosport.

"They have no idea -- and that is a worry. You only need to think about what would happen if someone gets shocked into the fast lane of the pitlane.

"It is like a plane crash when you don't get the evidence."

Mixed bag for Aussies in Kentucky
Sydney's Ryan Briscoe was seventh in the latest round of the Indy Racing League at Kentucky Speedway, Toowoomba's Will Power only lasted five laps, but Melbourne's James Davison was second in the Indy Lights race after winning the previous round at Mid-Ohio.

Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon scored his sixth win of the season and second in a row for Ganassi Racing as Briscoe's Penske teammate, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, ran out of fuel through the last turn and finished second for the seventh time this year.

"I think that was the view Dario (Franchitti) had on the last lap in Chicago last year," said Dixon, who ran out of fuel as Franchitti grabbed the title last season.

Dixon now leads Castroneves by 78 points with three rounds remaining.

"We need an 82-point lead to have it sewn up after the next race at Sonoma," Dixon said.

Castroneves has been in the top five at all but two of 14 rounds so far.

Marco Andretti led 38 laps in Kentucky and finished third.

Indy Racing League after 14 of 17 rounds - Scott Dixon (Ganassi) 558 points, Helio Castroneves (Penske) 480, Dan Wheldon (Ganassi) 420, Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green) 411, Ryan Briscoe (Penske) 350, Danica Patrick (Andretti Green) 315, Marco Andretti (Andretti Green) 311, Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman) 298, Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green) 298, Oriol Servia (KV Racing) 298, Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing) 282, Vitor Meira (Panther) 275, Will Power (KV Racing) 267.

Two Audi R10 TDIs -- driven by Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr and Marcel Fassler and Emanuele Pirro -- overtook the Acura in the last 20 minutes of the 800km race amid several caution periods.

Frenchman Franck Montagny crashed another Acura out of the lead while lapping a GT2 car in the closing minutes of the race.

Brabham's Acura took its class honors ahead of the Penske Porsche RS Spyder of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard.

Brabham and Sharp won an ALMS round at Lime Rock outright last month.

Aussies draw a blank at F3 Masters
It was a bad weekend for Aussies at the Formula 3 Masters -- the world's major event for up-and-coming open-wheeler drivers -- at Zolder in Belgium.

Queenslander John Martin was the 23rd and last finisher, two laps down, while West Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who usually races in Formula Renault in Europe and was having only his third F3 start, was one of five drivers who didn't complete a lap.

New Zealander Brendon Hartley finished fifth.

Frenchman Jules Bianchi, in only his second year of car racing, was superb in the wet weather as he won the Masters ahead of his ART Grand Prix teammates, German Nico Hulkenberg and Brit Jon Lancaster.

Bianchi's great uncle, Lucien, was an F1 driver in the 1960s but was killed practising for the Le Mans 24-hour sports car race.

His grandfather, Mauro, also was a race driver.

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