This weekend, Marcos Ambrose will debut a brand new sponsor on the hood of his No. 9 Ford – Twisted Tea.
“It’s pretty exciting to bring a new sponsor into the sport,” Ambrose expressed. “Twisted Tea has been around since the early 2000’s, so they’re a fairly new brand and it’s just great to have them at the Sprint Cup level. We’ve got them here as the naming right sponsor for the 600 and also the second race at Dover, so we’ve announced earlier that they’re an associate sponsor for the entire year, but to get a car naming rights is a big step forward for them and we hope to run well in the 600 for Twisted Tea. They’re bringing a lot of folks out here to check us out, so I hope we run well.”
So far, Ambrose is off to a good start as he qualified ninth during Thursday night’s qualifying session.
“The car is pretty good. The track is hot and slick,” Ambrose commented. “Charlotte in the afternoon when it’s hot like this is normally pretty nasty and the track was fairly treacherous out there and didn’t have a lot of grip. The cars are very aggressive with the setups we run these days, they seem to be pretty stiff and jumpy, and when the track has lost grip like it has in the heat of the day they’re always tough to hang on to, but we’re OK.”
Ambrose hasn’t had the best success at Charlotte with only three top-10 finishes, but that hasn’t fazed his approval on the length of the race.
“I like the length,” he commented. “I like the fact that it is different and the endurance factor certainly comes into play for the 600, so I like it. I don’t think we need to change it. We used to have a couple other big mileage races back in the day. This is the last one standing and I think it’s a bit of NASCAR history that should remain.”
With the race starting in the day and going into night, Ambrose’s approach matches one of an endurance race – survive the day, race for the marbles under the lights.
“I think that’s really the mindset going in is that you don’t overreact to the heat of the day,” Ambrose said. “We were lucky enough to run well last week in the All-Star prelim and that allowed us to really get a feel for what our package is gonna be for the 600 when the night comes, and we’re gonna just tweak on that setup a little bit and not really think too much about what it’s feeling like out there right now.”
A victory for Ambrose could be huge at this time, as his contract is currently up at Richard Petty Motorsports. Still, with that said, the focus remains on improving the team.
“I have to renew my contract with them, but I’m gonna do whatever I can to get Richard Petty where he wants to go and his whole company,” he expressed.
