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[/media-credit]After weeks of giving away top 10 finishes with great cars, Marcos Ambrose took a bad one and went about earning a good finish at Darlington the hard way.
Ambrose finished ninth in his No. 9 Stanley / DeWalt Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports after starting 28th. Fighting a loose condition and a lack of grip, Ambrose quickly found himself a lap down and out of contention early as the race went into a lap green flag run.
When the first caution flag flew, Ambrose wasn’t in position to get his lap back and soon he was two laps down and meeting the Lady in Black. Luckily while earning his Darlington stripe the car didn’t suffer any major damage.
He did however, make the highlight reel as he continued to fight his loose car.
As the laps clicked away, still unable to get his laps back, Ambrose and company continued to work on their car. Then, nearing the races 300-lap mark it paid off as he was running as fast as the leader and his optimism was returning.
“At lap 200 I was about ready to hang myself and by lap 260 I was ready to go to the front and show the boys what I had,” said Ambrose. “I’m just proud of my team. I’ve got to thank DeWalt and Ford for believing in me and the King [Richard Petty]. It was just a good night for us.”
Ambrose finally got one of his laps back on lap 299 when the caution flew for the fourth time. Crew chief Brad Parrott elected to keep him on track and take the wave around and Ambrose then went and raced his way into the ‘Lucky Dog’ spot by the time the next caution flew on lap 317.
Suddenly Ambrose was sitting pretty. He would restart 18th but quickly found himself inside the top 10 thanks to more pit strategy and rash of yellow flags.
“We got the wave around but we were already making the car better and holding our own,” he said. “From there we knew we had a good car, we just had to play the strategy and get the ‘Lucky Dog.’ We raced our way back to the ‘Lucky Dog’ and got back on the lead lap.
“It was just a good night. We’ve given away a lot of easy top 10s and that one was really earned, so I’m proud of my team and I’ve got to thank them.”
According to Ambrose his team should be off to a better start this season then they are. He blew an engine at Phoenix with 18 laps to go, he had been running third. Even in Bristol he felt he could have had a strong day but crashing at lap 25 while running 10th didn’t help.
Or in Texas while running sixth he ran out of fuel and last weekend in Talladega he was running sixth at the green-white-checkered before shuffling to the back.
Saturday he wasn’t the strongest car in the field but the team never gave up and fought until the very end. Earning back some of the points they’ve lost.
The finish was also his first top 10 of the season, coming in his 130th career race. He moves up three spots in points to 18th entering the All-Star weekend. And it wasn’t lost on Ambrose afterwards where he came from to earn his best career Darlington finish.
“I came from Mars,” he said laughing. “I re-entered orbit around lap 260 and the last 80 laps was a lot of fun. We were two laps down and just fought our way back. Our team didn’t give up. They didn’t give up on me and I didn’t give up on them.
“They just kept working on the car and making it better. We finally got ourselves some track position and got back on the lead lap and drove our way to the front.”
