MOTORSPORT: Marcos Ambrose's moment in America

The dual Australian V8 Supercar champion has been in America almost a decade now and is in his fifth full season in NASCAR’s premier category, the Sprint Cup.

It hasn’t got any easier for the Tasmanian this year, with just three finishes in the top 10 and a best of seventh driving a Ford Fusion for Richard Petty Motorsports. He’s sitting 22nd in the points.

But he “owns” the race at Watkins Glen, the world-renowned road course in upstate New York that will be the 22nd round of the Sprint Cup at 2am Monday, eastern Australian time. Ambrose has won it the past two years and this time a fellow Aussie, indeed a fellow Tasmanian, Owen Kelly - against whom he competed in karts when they were kids - is in the field.

The big V8 Supercar news of the week has been the poaching of Red Bull Racing Racing Australia team principal Adrian Burgess by Holden Racing Team owner Ryan Walkinshaw, son of the late Tom.

There also has been good news on the sponsorship front for Dick Johnson Racing on the back of 21-year-old rookie Chaz Mostert’s race win at the recent Ipswich 360, with Wilson Security extending its backing until the end of this year’s championship – although it clearly would welcome another sponsor aboard.

While the V8 Supercar endurance races loom at Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast in the next couple of months, there already are 44 entries for the Bathurst 12-Hour early next February and the prospect of a full field of 55 (although applications have been frozen temporarily), see here.
And there is talk of Ferrari returning to the Le Mans 24-Hour in 2015 - 50 years after its last outright victory there.

How Ambrose leads the way on famous road course
Marcos Ambrose has made 174 Sprint Cup starts in America but victory on an oval track still eludes him.

Both his wins have been on the Watkins Glen road course, last year outgunning eventual series champion Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch on the last lap on an oily track. 

Indeed Ambrose has a phenomenal record at the seven-turn, 2.45-mile (3.92km) circuit best known for having hosted the United States Grand Prix in the 1960s and ’70s.

In three other Cup races at The Glen before his successes of the past two years he finished second once and third twice – once from last place on the grid, in 2008 for another famous team, Wood Brothers. He’s also won three times there in the second-tier Nationwide Series.

If Ambrose wins again on Monday morning he will join Jeff Gordon, a four-time Cup champion and the most successful road racer in NASCAR history, and Mark Martin in the exclusive “club” of drivers to have won three straight Cup races at The Glen.

“Obviously we feel like we are contenders each time we go to Watkins Glen,” Ambrose said this week. “I just know what I want in the car, and we have been fortunate enough to get that feel in our Ford Fusions the past two races. That allows me to race up front and I have a lot of confidence.

“Watkins Glen is a really fast track and I really enjoy it. I know what I need to do to be there at the end.

“Last year was a really great finish. It was stressful, but a lot of fun to battle against Kyle and Brad the last few laps for the win. We were dealing with the elements of the track having oil on it and we were all sliding all around. It led to an exciting finish - and I'm happy that we came out on top.

“We have had a tough season this year – our car isn’t where it needs to be - but this race can very quickly turn it around and put us in contention for a wildcard berth in The Chase [the dozen drivers who compete for the Cup title over the final 10 rounds]. That's what our goal is right now. We haven't given up ... this entire crew keeps fighting hard.

“I’m proud to be associated with this Richard Petty Motorsports team and hopefully we can continue our streak at Watkins Glen.”

Ambrose’s crew chief Drew Blickensderfer said it was “really fun to work with him on a road course”.

“This is a track where Marcos makes it very easy on me - he knows what he wants in the car all the way down to the steering wheel and shifter ball,” Blickensderfer said. “It’s just a matter of listening and making the changes Marcos wants.

“You learn so much [from him]. He just doesn’t care what others are doing. He really is the leader in the Cup garage when it comes to setting up a car at The Glen.

“I feel that this is a weekend that can really turn everything around for us. We can climb into the top 20 in points and be there for a wildcard berth [in The Chase].”

Ambrose is the only Aussie driver to have made a career in NASCAR.

Dick Johnson did seven races over there and Terry Byers, one of the stalwarts of stock car racing at Bob Jane’s Calder Park Thunderdome two decades ago, did five. Allan Grice made two starts and Geoff Brabham, Frank Gardner and Tony Spanos one each.

Kelly, 36, has foregone Australia’s V8 Supercar Endurance Cup this year to pursue his American dream. He already has driven several Nationwide Series races, with a fourth place at Road America in June, driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, his best result.

At The Glen he will drive a Chevrolet built by Hendrick Motorsport and entered by Phoenix Racing. The car finished third last year at California’s Sonoma, the only other road course in the Sprint Cup, driven by Kurt Busch.

Kelly has a simple aim for Monday’s race. “I want to finish on the lead lap and do a good job for the team,” he said. “If we can generate a result out of that it will be fantastic.”

Tony Stewart’s season goes up in smoke
One of NASCAR’s superstars and its most successful driver at The Glen, with a record five Cup race wins, will be missing there this time.

Tony Stewart, nicknamed “Smoke” and well known to Australian speedway fans from regular visits Down Under until a blow-up at Parramatta a couple of years back, is in hospital with two broken bones in his right leg.

Competing at a dirt-oval race in Iowa early in the week Stewart’s sprintcar flipped. Four-time Sprint Cup champion Stewart has had two bouts of surgery since the crash, which almost certainly has cost him any chance of making The Chase and a shot at a fifth title. The crash has ended his streak of 521 consecutive NASCAR starts. Other than Ambrose, he has had the highest finishing average in Cup races at Watkins Glen – fractionally better than eighth compared with the Aussie’s outstanding second.

“Mad Max” Papis, a former Formula One and IndyCar racer without a stock car win from 92 starts in the top three categories of NASCAR, will drive Stewart’s Chevrolet at The Glen. 

The main opposition to Ambrose there is likely to come from Brad Keselowski, who twice has been runner-up to him there but is yet to win a race since his Penske team switched from Dodge to Ford this season; Jeff Gordon, although his road-course success was mainly ages ago; Juan Pablo Montoya, the F1 refugee and another two-time road course winner without an oval victory; the effervescent Kyle Busch; and perhaps former Indy driver A.J. Allmendinger, rehabilitated after a drug ban last season.

But Allmendinger has acknowledged Ambrose’s overhwhelming favoritism, saying: “He’s the guy to beat every time he shows up at The Glen.”

See here for a Sports Illustrated perspective on Ambrose’s standing in NASCAR ahead of this race.

Triple Eight Race Engineering owner Roland Dane, who has reverted to the team principal role at RBRA after he and Burgess immediately parted ways, was – not surprisingly – furious. It has been said that beating Walkinshaw’s father Tom, who died a little more than 2½ years ago, was Dane’s driving force.

While angry that Burgess has decided to swap sides, Dane quite rightly pointed out that Triple Eight won a lot of races and championships before Burgess arrived from Dick Johnson Racing after guiding James Courtney to the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship.

And, although Burgess has been integral to Jamie Whincup’s latest titles the past two years and the continued competitiveness of Craig Lowndes, Dane said there was no reason why his outfit, now with Red Bull livery having replaced Vodafone this season, would not continue its success. Burgess will reunite at HRT with Courtney, who recently renewed his contract for three years and who Dane “fingered” for playing a major role in luring Burgess.

Ford Performance Racing engineering manager Matt Nilsson has signaled his exit from the Blue Oval team at the end of the season and is expected to return to HRT.

Burgess won’t be allowed to start there until almost the eve of next season.

Ryan Walkinshaw said his recruitment was “a long-term succession approach”, with Steve Hallam – another Brit who has run HRT since the start of last season but has overseen just one race win, by Garth Tander (ahead of Courtney) in Townsville last month – returning to Britain after this year.

Burgess and Hallam were long-time colleagues at the McLaren F1 team but there is no sign Hallam had a hand in recruiting Burgess to HRT – indeed he may not have known until the day of the announcement.

“Steve was given the task of rebuilding the organisation, and in a short time he has orchestrated the VF Commodore development and build program, strengthened our management, restructured various departments and operations, and implemented a range of new processes and strategies,” Walkinshaw said.

“Steve will leave the team in a much stronger position and with a restored winning culture.

“Adrian’s experience, leadership skills and passion for winning make him the ideal candidate to continue to build on what Steve has achieved and lead Walkinshaw Racing into the future.”

HRT has robbed the other factory-supported Holden team of its key manager, but Dane still has the technical trump – Ludo Lacroix.

Even though the Car of the Future has made the playing field in V8 Supercars much more even, it is Lacroix we suspect who still gives the Triple Eight cars the edge.

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