Street Life Auto Club

Monday Morning Crew Chief: Fair Dinkum, Marcos

By On August 24th, 2009

Marcos-Ambrose-Bristol

For the armchair enthusiast, it was a great weekend: Formula 1 in Valencia, the IRL at Sears Point, and the Bristol night race for NASCAR. Usually, I find NASCAR as exciting as helping with my kids’ homework, but the races on road courses and short tracks are pretty compelling. And Bristol at night is one of the best.

This year’s race highlighted one of the feel-good stories of the year: the emergence of Marcos Ambrose, the amiable 33-year-old Aussie who drives for JTG Daugherty Racing, with support from Michael Waltrip Racing. Through the pages of the racing comics, I watched his career in European formula car racing falter for lack of money, then saw his rise as a superstar in Aussie V-8 touring cars, and wondered how he’d do when Ford signed him up to race in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Well, he’s done all right. Ambrose is currently 17th in the Sprint Cup points standings after finishing third at Bristol, his second top-10 at the Tennessee bullring. He has finished fourth at Talladega and sixth at Daytona this year, along with second at Watkins Glen and third at Sears Point. You would expect him to do well in the road races, but his success on a short track makes me wonder if driving an overly powerful, under-tired Aussie supercar might be better preparation for NASCAR than coming from formula cars.

After all, it seems that the quick way in a Cup car is to lean on the outside rear tire, much like a sprint car, whereas formula car drivers tend to pitch the car in and rely on the front end biting. Presumably, Ambrose is used to cars that both oversteer and destroy their rear tires, so is more at home than an F1 refugee like Scott Speed should be. (Although Speed actually qualified third at Bristol.)

What’s nice about the infiltration of NASCAR by people like Sam Hornish, Montoya, Speed, AJ Allmendinger, and Ambrose is that the southern boy’s club is being further broken up. Now, people in NASCAR are seeing what talented drivers from outside of sprint-car or oval-track racing can do in their sport.

Original Post By Google News Mark Gillies

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