| | | | | | DO A DANCE | Ambrose, Kingsford team ready for Texas two step | |
| | From Staff Reports Marcos Ambrose will have a lot going on this weekend at the Texas Motor Speedway. He’s scheduled to drive the No. 59 Kingsford Tailgate at Home Ford in Saturday’s O’Reilly Challenge and in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race.
His focus is leading JTG Daugherty Racing and Kingsford to a Top 10 finish in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings.
“It’s a big challenge to compete in two different series at the same time, especially when you’re driving cars that are so different,” Ambrose said. “There’s a huge difference between the Nationwide and Sprint Cup cars. You always benefit from track time, but they react differently to adjustments, they have different ranges of power and they don’t drive the same because they have different levels of downforce.
“But as a driver, when you jump from one car to the other, it only takes a lap or two to get adjusted.”
Ambrose and JTG Daugherty Racing are 10th in the Nationwide Series standings. The team started the season with two goals – to win a race and finish in the Top 10 in the point standings.
Ambrose won earlier this year at Watkins Glen, N.Y., so the team is on the verge of accomplishing all of its goals.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” said crew chief Gary Cogswell. “We’ve put ourselves in a good position, but we’ve got to close the deal. I know it gets a little busy with Marcos running back and forth between two garage areas, but when he’s working on this Kingsford car, he gives us 100 percent. He’s very focused to making sure we finish in the Top 10.
“And on Sunday, we all root for him on the other side.”
Despite doing double-duty, Ambrose has finished in the Top 20 in 17 of his last 18 races in the Kingsford car.
“The Sprint Cup car is something we’re doing for the future with JTG Daugherty Racing,” Ambrose said. “Our Kingsford car is what we’re doing right now. We want to finish strong. We’re not satisfied with just being 10th in the standings; we want to see if we can move up to eighth or ninth.”
| | Posted October 30, 2008 , 6:31 pm EST
Last Updated November 03, 2008 , 11:56 pm EST | | | | | | | | | | |
