Luck Spin Marcos' Way

[Hillzy]

Luck spins Marcos' way

STUART INNES

August 09, 2007 02:15am

SOURCE: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0...3-12428,00.html, Advertiser, The (Adelaide) Thursday, 9 August 2007.

IN a shock turn of events, Australia's Marcos Ambrose will have his debut race in the top-level NASCAR series in the U.S. this weekend - in a car run by Robby Gordon.

It is a peace offering from Gordon who spun Ambrose out of the Busch Series race last weekend in Canada in an outrageous act of bad sportsmanship when Ambrose was leading only two laps from the finish.

The 30-year-old Tasmanian was on his way to his first victory in the Busch Series, the division two of NASCAR racing, when Gordon apparently lost his temper following an earlier incident.

Gordon, who is on probation until the end of the season for his weekend actions, runs a team of Fords in both the Busch Series and the top-level Nextel Cup series. He is providing a car for Ambrose to race in the Nextel Cup race this weekend at Watkins Glen course in New York.

Ambrose will do double-duty this weekend.

He'll race his usual Aussie Vineyards/Kingsford Charcoal Ford Fusion in the Busch Series on Saturday.

He then steps into the Robby Gordon Motorsports Ford Fusion, with some Kingsford Charcoal signage, for the Nextel Cup race on Sunday.

Ambrose's usual Wood Bothers/JTG Racing team will help run and crew for his Sunday race.

Gordon admitted yesterday he had taken the attitude that "If I'm not going to win, he's not going to win" last Sunday in Canada.

"I felt this opportunity (to race in the Nextel Cup) would be a make-up. He's a talented race driver.

"He'll be driving a brand new, purpose-built road racing car."

Ambrose said he compared the make-up to two players getting into a fight in an Aussie Rules game, "then heading to the pub together for a beer."

"'This is part apology and part compliment on Robby's behalf," he said.

It's observed that Ambrose's refusal to get into any verbal warfare about Gordon after the Canada race has allowed the deal to be done.

Watkins Glen is a road circuit, as was Canada last weekend, which will favour Ambrose compared with the oval tracks. He won two Australian V8 Supercar Championships for Ford in circuit racing.

The Nextel Cup cars look similar but have 850hp (635kW) of power compared with the Busch Series car's 750hp (560kW). The Nextel Cup car can reach 321km/h to the Busch Series car's 314km/h and it is 5cm narrower. Both use 5866cc V8 engines and four-speed gearboxes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's awesome news for Ambrose. Pitty it's under such forced circumstances... talk about Gordon sucking up! I'm sure he'll do good, maybe even a well deserved win!

[ctjet]

So he'll be racing in the same catagory as Montoya?

... im not a big NASCAR fan i dont know these series from one another

[Beer Baron]

yep, at leat fot this one race he'll be in nextel cup which is where the big dawgs (inc monty) are.

[ctjet]

please tell me it'll be on Foxtel... dear god please

[Hillzy]

It should be... I mean it better be!

[Beer Baron]

yeah of course. they play it a couple of times. they play marco's series too. busch series. hell they even play the farkin craftsman truck series which marcos used to race. nothing gayer than watching utes race on ovals that look to be about 100 meters long.

[88silhouette]

beauty

good on ambrose

[grandmasterb]

Not a fan of Ambrose but i think what Gordon did was all sorts of wrong, has to be one of the worst if not the worst show of bad sportsmanship i have ever seen in motorsport!!!

[Beer Baron]

umm, I'm watching the cup race from watkins glenn right now and there is no ambrose in it? what happened?

[Beer Baron]

ok, I found it. did not qualify. that's disappointing.

[ctjet]

what?! not quick enough?

thats a shame

[Beer Baron]

well he was 35th in practice, but quali was rained out so i think they set the grid based on championship points which meant marcos missed out.

There was a nice little biffo between Monty and Harvick. the best bit was when harvick parked his car in front of monty and monty hopped out the commentator goes: "oooh, there's going to be a fight! I want to see THIS!" couldn't have put it better myself. but in the end it just some pushing and shoving. Monty did go a nice little gouge through the visor opening of harvicks helmet though which was pretty good. and he shoved a few officials too.

after all that tony stewart won and it was a good win too considering at one point he spun off and dropped from the lead to about 20th.

[PORTS]

I must be seeing things, I could've sworn I saw Ambose #59 on the scroll at the top of the screen.

[Beer Baron]

not in a cup race. maybe you were wathching the busch race?

did you see monty having a 'chat' with harvick? if not, you were watching busch,

[mid life crisis]

damm i was hoping ambrose would wreck gordons car on purpose and then tell him paybacks a bitch lol

[ctjet]

youtube link FTW

[ctjet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abya1zCQ9KA

... i LOVE the monster

[Beer Baron]

lol, don't look at me I watched it the ol fashioned way... on the telly. it was nice to see monty get fired up, but I felt a bit let down there was no serious punching on.

[ctjet]

with helmets on, i dun think they're gonna get too far

[mid life crisis]

reminds me of the tony loghurst and i think paul morris when they was team mates in the bmw punching each other after they took each other out lol