Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

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!

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180156-luck-spin-marcos-way/
Share on other sites

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.

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.

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.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • That was the first session so not a lot to take from the day. It was low 20s ambient and the coolant had got to 110 (and obviously had some pressure!) so that still needs to be addressed. I haven't downloaded the data yet but will. I had refilled the auto trans with Redline DT6 because it claimed the best viscosity I could find at 100o. It wasn't really long enough to get a good feel for that; while the trans got to 100o in the session it still wasn't shifting crisply as I hoped. I think I'll try a few more sessions before judging. No steering motor overheat but I'd hope not in only 1 session! But finally the suspension; it was night and day over the standard stuff and the car was a couple of seconds quicker on the same crappy tyres, which is a huge difference. I'll stick with that and get some sway bars and a mechanical diff sorted too and see how that all goes together
    • I guess it’s partially a compromise of how my car is used, wanting to be able to switch from drift to grip with track side on-car adjustment. Also partially with the way the knuckles are set there is more static camber but less dynamic camber gain. 
    • OK, so update from the track day on Friday It was a classic "an unfortunate series of events'. There were a few cars around and when i checked my mirror coming out of the fish hook I notice some smoke from the rear of mine. Looked again and it was getting much worse, I figured I'd blown a turbo or something to got off it and pulled off the racing line. However.... since it is a left hairpin into a right kink, I was on the inside of the next corner. There was a car passing me on the left and a big drop off over the ripple strip on the right......and someone had knocked the witch's hat that was on the apex about 1m onto the track. So, between those 3, I decided to mow down the cone and not damage my car/the other car. Right choice, but surprising result.  The car decided the cone was a small pedestrian so it blew the rear bonnet hinges up to protect their head in the upcoming person to car impact....I didn't see that coming and like an airbag deployment it happened super fast. Straight into the pits from there, everything was driving fine but it became clear it was a coolant leak not smoke, it was billowing up onto the windscreen. Onto the trailer and home. I'll do a separate thread about the repair (once I work out what it is ), but the immediate problem was the bonnet wouldn't open because the front was pinched onto the front bar and would not release. Ultimately we unbolted the hinge from the bonnet, pulled it back a little and it released from the front OK. "There's your problem", the top radiator hose had popped off at the radiator.
    • Yeah that looks like great caster, but I'd suggest trying less front camber some time and seeing if it helps with braking without reducing mid corner speed too much
    • I ended up setting the rear 5mm higher than normal to give some clearance.  My plan is to run the least camber I can in the rear which I think with the extra width is going to need to be -1.75 to -2.00° just to get clearance.  Guards have been rolled and pulled as much as they can/I would be wanting to.  front has the Acostal knuckle with the KPI change and the drop etc. So should be okay with the existing settings I have run with AR1s etc Front: Toe total -2mm(1mm out each side) Caster +7.5° Camber -3.8° Ackerman +15°
×
×
  • Create New...