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November 09, 2008
Marcos Ambrose Races His Way Into the Top 35
The more I see of Marcos Ambrose the more impressed I am. Although he's had to battle the usual bad luck that always seems to spoil good runs for Michael Waltrip Racing teams, he's done a solid job the last few races in the used-to-be #00, now #47. The best part is that Marcos followed up a 21st place finish last weekend at Texas by finishing 18th today at Phoenix despite having been swept up in a wreck not of his own doing - he and his team did a great job of staying on the lead lap and hanging on for the last few laps of the race. That finish puts Marcos in the top 35 in owner's points! That means he's locked in to next weekend's race at Homestead and if he finishes well enough to stay in the top 35, he'll have ensured that he'll be locked in for the first five races next season! In addition, he will have helped MWR achieve one of their goals for this season - to have all three of their teams finish the season in the top 35 in owner's points. If that happens that will be huge for the organization - it might not be a big deal to some teams but considering where they were a year ago it would be pretty big!
It wasn't as good of a day for Michael Waltrip and David Reutimann. As per usual these days David was racing up front and it appeared that he might be in line for a strong finish. But then he had to pit because a cowl cover wasn't removed and things went downhill from there. At first I thought David was going to be able to recover from that incident and race his way back up front but it never happened and David ended up finishing 25th, two laps down. Michael Waltrip finished just ahead of David in 24th. The car was okay but not great in today's race and Michael never really seemed to be able to do much with it. But I can't say I'm too upset - both David and Michael finished in the top 25. While neither finish is stellar, that's still progress from where they were a year ago and even earlier this season when finishing in the top 35, particularly for the #55 team might have been considered a good result.
The other drivers in the top 35 battle besides Marcos didn't finish very well which is one reason Marcos was able to gain ground and get back into the top 35. Sam Hornish, Jr. who doesn't have much of a chance of racing his way back in was involved in two incidents, Scott Speed was involved in the big wreck of the day and finished 40th and Robby Gordon raced in the back all day long. It's puzzling to me that Red Bull Racing has Speed in the car. While I understand that they want to get him some experience for next season, they have to expect that he's going to struggle, thus jeopardizing their chances of finishing the season in the top 35.
Based on the way A.J. Allmendinger has been racing lately it's safe to say that the results would have been much better if they had just stuck with him and then odds are Speed would be starting the season in the top 35. But it's looking like he won't be locked in next season and he'll have to worry about making races - that's a horrible situation to put a rookie in and RBR should know that considering all that they've gone through with the top 35 for the past two seasons. Maybe RBR thought that the #00 (#47) team was so bad that they didn't have to worry about them racing their way back into the top 35. However, that was a miscalculation - MWR has been fielding much more competitive cars for a few months now.
All I know is that the decision that MWR made to take Michael McDowell out of the third car and put Marcos and a few other driver in was an excellent one. I'm not sure that the #47/00 would be back in the top 35 right now if McD was behind the wheel. Marcos has really done a great job for JTG/MWR!
Posted by silverdsl at November 9, 2008 09:02 PM