NASCAR News With Attitude

By The Associated Press  - - - - November 30, 2008

With the 2008 NASCAR season over, drivers from the three top professional series have headed home or set off on well-earned vacations.

None of them has traveled farther than Marcos Ambrose.

The Australian driver flew straight from the final weekend of racing in Homestead to his native land. Once he got there, the first place he visited was, you guessed it, was a racetrack.

Ambrose, a two-time Australian V8 Supercar champion, spent last weekend watching the V8 Supercars race at his home circuit, Symmons Plaines Raceway, just outside Launceston, Tasmania.

And, of course, everyone wanted to know about NASCAR.

“I feel like I had my butt handed to me this year in the U.S., ” Ambrose told the local media. “I finally got in some competitive equipment, got into that Cup racing game and realized that if I’m going to contend, I’ve really got to go to another level.”

In his third season racing in America, Ambrose drove full-time in the Nationwide Series, winning his first race at Watkins Glen and finishing 10th in the points. He also ran in 11 Sprint Cup races, taking a season-best third at Watkins Glen, with 18th place in Phoenix his best finish on an oval.

Next season, Ambrose will run the full Sprint Cup schedule in the No. 47 Toyota for JTG Daugherty Racing, which has entered into a technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing. Primary racing sponsorship will be shared among Little Debbie, Kingsford, Clorox and Bush’s Beans.

“The 11 races I’ve done at the Cup level have been an eye-opener for me,” Ambrose said. “I’ve realized that to last five hours out there is not an easy thing. The races are long, they’re aggressive. The drivers are as good and competitive as I’ve seen anywhere and the depth of talent is amazing.”

“I’m looking forward to that challenge. Everything is poised to be something special. All I’ve asked of myself and the people that have worked with me over there is to give me the opportunity to prove or disprove whether I’ve got it and whether I can do it.”

For now, Ambrose is just happy to have a little time off.

“Yeah, I really need a break now,” he said. “It’s been a long year. Someone said to me earlier that I’ve basically done three seasons of V8 Supercars in 10 months. And that’s really what it feels like.

“I feel tired, I feel worn out, I feel like I’ve had enough for a while. The double race formats have been difficult for me, the travel between the tracks. . . I call it the two-tenths rule. I’m two-tenths of a second a lap away from flying my own jet and, unfortunately, I’m flying around commercial, doing it the hard way.

“Hopefully, this break can give me the chance to really refocus and have a good think about what I need to to to be successful and be better.”

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