Asian Motor Sports

The following is a transcript from Marcos Ambrose’s press conference during the opening day of Preseason Thunder testing for the NASCAR Busch Series at Daytona International Speedway in Florida today.

Ambrose and the Aussie Vineyards-backed #59 Kingsford Charcoal Ford Fusion set the ninth fastest time for the day and were the fastest Ford present.

HOW WERE YOUR FIRST LAPS IN A BUSCH CAR AROUND DAYTONA?

“This is my first experience of Daytona. I was here as a spectator last year watching the 20 truck being raced by Jon Wood. So, the first few laps out there, I knew I had to go on the high line there to simulate the qualifying run that we’re going to do. I gave myself a good couple of car-widths gap just in case. I wanted to feel the car out and the track out. It’s a lot bumpier than I thought, a lot narrower than I thought, but it’s just a thrill to be here.

It feels today that I’ve actually made it to NASCAR. I’ve got a great team in Wood Brothers and a great American sponsor in Kingsford. We’re here at Daytona and running in a Busch car. It’s just a dream come true.”

DID YOU FOLLOW NASCAR BACK IN AUSTRALIA?

“I had my radar on NASCAR from the late 90s. I was in Europe racing single-seaters. I was actually a couple of years behind Juan (Montoya). He was off and away, and I was struggling in the junior ranks there trying to make ends meet and trying to see where I could get in motorsport. I realised that Formula One wasn’t for me and I wasn’t going to get there by talent or by chance, so I was looking for other things, and I knew NASCAR and I studied it a lot and watched the races. But, I didn’t have any opportunities at all. I had to go to Australia and really regroup my career.

Once I thought I could handle the big, heavy Australian V8 Supercars, I thought, ‘These things aren’t dissimilar to NASCAR.’ They’re 3200 pounds, they have plenty of horsepower and not enough grip, so I thought I’d come over and have a look and see what’s around. I was a Ford driver in Australia, so I basically came over to Bristol in 2003 with a friend of mine. We rented a motorcoach, and off we went up to Bristol and camped out there in the outfield with all of the fans, and we got a real experience there, and I was hooked on NASCAR from that day on. I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to make a career out of racing, I at least want to have a go over here and see if I can make something work.’

From mid-2003 onwards, I really focused on Australian racing to try to make the most of what I was doing there to try to get some credentials behind me before I started making some phone calls. I leveraged Ford Australia pretty hard to give me them chance to come over here, and got in contact with Dan Davis from Ford Racing, and it was through their association that I met Tad Geschickter in mid-2005. I already made the decision and the announcement that I was going to leave Australian racing, which down there was relatively big news in our local race scene that I was going to come across to America with no ride in the foreseeable future and see if I could make something happen in NASCAR.

I met Tad Geschickter in the Ford suite at IRP in 2005. I came back shortly after and drove one of his cars for a day or two and we signed up a deal over the phone. It was pretty special, I think, that Tad had that much confidence to do that for me, and by hook or by crook, he made it work for us in the truck series with a limited budget, and with the help of Team Australia we did reasonable last year. I don’t think I did as well as I could have, but they put their faith in me with Kingsford Charcoal to give me the chance over here in the Busch Series, and I’ve only got one chance at this. I’m 30 now, and I’ve got a great team behind me and there’s no better way to get it done than the opportunity that I’ve got.”

WHAT SACRIFICES HAVE YOU MADE TO GET TO THIS POINT IN YOUR CAREER, AND WHAT GIVES YOU THE CONFIDENCE THAT YOU WILL SUCCEED IN NASCAR?

“Well, you’ve got to believe in yourself. I believe that I’m going to do the very best that I can, and for every ounce of ability that I’ve got, I’m going to try to make the most of it. Whether it’s good enough to make it here in NASCAR, I don’t know. It’s not a question that I can answer today. Am I going to be good enough? I don’t know. My learning curve is still going and I’m still learning every week, so there will come a time when the performance will dictate how my learning’s gone, and there will be an acid test, I’m sure, somewhere down the track.

But, yeah, I’ve sacrificed a lot, like any racing driver. I’ve come from halfway around the world. I’ve come from a little island underneath Australia called Tasmania, and there is almost no racing there and my whole life has been revolved around racing. I left home at 18 and we struggled there for a little while, and I dragged my wife all around the world and we finally got ourselves in position in Australia where we earning some money and I could have bought a boat, but I gave all that up to come over here to America and spend another little pool of money.

I guess a lot of people looked at me strangely in Australia. We reached the pinnacle in Australian motorsport, in V8 Supercar. It’s a very successful series and it’s one of the top four sports in Australia, and we were king of the kids down there for a little while, and right at the prime I said, ‘I’m going to bail out of this, boys, and I’m going to go over to America and start all over again.’

I guess I believe in myself, and the decision for me was never a risk, it was just a life experience, but a lot of people, I guess, on the other side of the fence thought I was a little nuts. Here we are today and I wouldn’t take back anything, even if it doesn’t go as well as we all hope, I don’t regret one decision that I’ve made. By coming over here, I just think it’s a dream come true. Very few guys can say that they lived their dream. When I was a child, I dreamed of racing cars and racing the biggest and best, and NASCAR is clearly that. It’s the biggest and best motorsport in the world.”

DO YOU THINK THAT YOU AND JUAN PABLO MONTOYA WILL BE THE LITMUS TEST FOR INTERNATIONAL DRIVERS IN NASCAR?

“Well, here’s my take on it. I think that the timing now to come into the sport is perfect for an international driver. If we don’t do well - and I’m not Juan, so I can’t answer for him - and I haven’t come in with his credentials either, so we’re on slightly different angles. But, if it doesn’t work out for both of us, or either of us, then it’s going to stop, I guess, a lot of guys thinking about coming over.

If it does very well then it’s going to open the door for more. How many more do the fans want and NASCAR wants is a good question. I think the timing right now is great for us. I’ve been given every opportunity to do well. I’m with a great team, I’m with a great sponsor and they’ve given me plenty of experience, so there’s no reason why I can’t do well if I’m good enough.

I think people are watching. I know the Australian race drivers that I raced against and guys I raced against in Europe are probably keeping and eye out for us. It’s one of the few motorsports right now that’s booming. As a professional driver, you want to go where the action is, and NASCAR is where all the action is right now.”

DO YOU EXPECT THE AUSTRALIAN FANS TO FOLLOW THE BUSCH SERIES?

“Well, I hope so. We’re meant to be on TV down there this year. The truck series wasn’t televised, so I think that’s going to make a big difference for us even though it is on at 3:30 on a Sunday morning. You have to be pretty keen to get up and watch it at that time. I guess that the exposure there will help us a lot. There is clearly a lot of interest.

My website runs about 70-30 - 70 percent Australian and 30 percent American - and I think we will continue to grow the American audience if we start doing OK on the race track and we start getting TV time down there. There is a healthy respect for NASCAR and American sport. We get the NFL down there, we get the NBA down there and we get NASCAR as well. We’re almost another state of America when it comes to TV and sport. We’ve got all of your bad TV shows, too, all of your bad sitcoms (laughing). I come over to America and turn the channels and they still have the same stuff on TV, with the exception of Speed Channel, of course.”

YOU ARE MUCH MORE OF A CELEBRITY IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY THAN HERE IN AMERICA, BUT ARE YOU STARTING TO BECOME RECOGNIZED IN THE STATES?

“It’s pretty good that I can go to that NASCAR SpeedPark at Charlotte and race with 10 cars with no one knowing who I am. So, yeah, I’m pretty much invisible here right now, but we’re hoping to change that because if you want to make a career as an adult you have to be out there in public and be approachable, so I guess that will come in time.

In Australia, I went home for Christmas for five weeks, and it was great that a lot of people in the street knew what I was up to and knew about America and NASCAR and the results. I was pleasantly surprised about how many people actually had a keen interest in what we were doing. But, here in the U.S., I’m still a little invisible. I got a few claps coming off of the stage there last year in the truck series. I think the bucket hat had more to do with it than me, but I’ll take it.”

WHY THE MOVE TO THE BUSCH SERIES AFTER JUST ONE SEASON IN THE TRUCKS?

“Well, you’ll have to ask the team that. The team decided to lift me up into the Busch Series, so they must see something there. We understand - I do, and the team does and the sponsor does, too - that we’re rookies out there and we’re on learning curve and that 2007 is a year of change again for me. I’m not going to say no to a Busch ride, am I? Flip a coin and what are going to choose, 35 races or 25? I’m just rapt for their belief in me, and the opportunity that they’ve given me, and I just hope that I can repay them.”

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS SEASON?

“Well, it depends on what all those Cup guys do. If they come in 20 deep like they did last year, then getting a top-20 is going to be a tough task. We just want to start the year with a solid base and that means finishing races. It means getting the laps in during the races and building a platform from there. You can’t perform unless you finish, and we just want to build a base for ourselves first. The first five races are all about making sure you stay in the top 35 in points, and if we do that then we can start looking for performance after that.”

WHAT PART OF YOUR EXPERIENCE DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN BRING TO YOUR TEAM TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS?

“Well, I guess I’ve got it done in other forms of racing. I’ve been in a championship battle. I was European Formula Ford champion in 1999, and the 2003 and 2004 champion in V8 Supercar. I guess under the pump I don’t falter too badly, although some claim I did in 2005 (joking). I’ve got world experience. I’ve raced a lot of cars in a lot of different places and I hope I can be a fresh angle for them.

I’d like to think that I’m a smarter racer than a talented racer. I think about set-ups and how we can improve our car and our team, and if I can help them on that and lift the team forward then I feel like I’ve done my part.

Whether I’m good enough to win a Busch championship or a Cup championship, I guess time will tell. Right now, the only angle that I can come from is my world experience. I’ve come from a different form of racing, and sometimes a fresh angle is a good one.”

DO YOU THINK YOUR AUSTRALIAN ACCENT HAS ATTRACTED FANS?

“Well, I can have the best accent in the world, but if I can’t string two words together, what hope do I have? Australians, we’re well regarded here in America. I’ve been pleasantly surprised about the welcome response that I’ve had from people on the street and people here in the NASCAR racing community, and just the guys at the gym. They love Australians. I guess it must have been Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin and those guys doing us a favor. I see a snake and I run at about 500 kpm trying to get away from the thing. We’re not all as tough as Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan.”

HOW MUCH TIME HAVE YOU SPENT WITH YOUR NEW CREW CHIEF, AND ARE YOU GETTING ANY ASSISTANCE FROM OTHER DRIVERS TO HELP WITH YOUR LEARNING CURVE?

“I hadn’t met Greg Conner, our new crew chief, until I came back from Australia on January 3, so that’s a work in progress. He needs to see me drive before I can have belief in what I’m all about in my angle, and I need to see him work at the race track, too. I think he has a lot of great assets and he seems like a really great guy, and he seems to have his head screwed on and he thinks similar to the way I approach my racing, so we’ve got great potential right now.

We’ve got to make sure we harness that and make the most of that. My own experiences, I had Robert Pressley last year give me a lot of help from race to race, especially early on. But, there came a time where no matter what people were telling me, I had to experience firsthand. I look back at the season, and the stuff that Robert was telling me, and even Kenny Schrader and those guys, I didn’t get it until I actually experienced it firsthand. ??It took a few rear clips and a bit of beating and banging late at night to fix my mistakes.

But, I guess you have to learn your mistakes and learn from your mistakes, and no matter what they’re telling me, I really have to experience a lot of it firsthand. For the second half of the year it was all about getting out there and getting a feel for it. ‘Let’s wind it back a little bit.’ We did after I crashed a couple of times early on there. We decided to start at the back for a couple of weeks and really feel out those bigger speedways. I think that really paid off, and I’m looking forward to going to the next level now. Now I feel like I’m just starting to get comfortable behind the wheel where I can at least start to try stuff out there on the race track. Rather than hang on, I’m feeling a little more confident to push it.”

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT FOR A DRIVER WITH A ROAD-RACING BACKGROUND TO ADAPT TO OVAL-TRACK RACING?

“It’s been incredibly hard, and I always knew it was going to be. I thought I had a different angle coming in from V8 Supercar because the cars are over-powered, too heavy and under-tired, so the body roll and the movement, I thought, would be similar to NASCAR. I think that is true to a certain extent, but just to run left so fast and so often, it took a long time to feel comfortable on it.

Yeah, you can do laps on your own, and I did some testing with Tad when I got the ride and thought, ‘Yeah, I think I can do all right on this,’ but in race conditions when everyone is around you, you really have to learn the aerodynamic package that you have and learn to race people. The hardest part is to not just do a fast lap, but to actually race in the pack and to move forward and not backward when you get in a gaggle.”

IS IT FRUSTRATING NOT TO BE USING YOUR ROAD-RACING SKILLS AT A TRACK LIKE DAYTONA WHERE YOU JUST RUN FLAT OUT?

“Well, you say that you’re running flat out, but you’ve got your eyes wide open too because you’re running pretty quick up against the fence, so it’s a fresh set of challenges. I feel that I’ve been road racing all of my life, and I love the change; I love doing something different. So, do I regret not braking?

No, I thought braking sucked most of the time because you’re trying to slow it down. You race cars to go fast, so I found road racing in the end a little frustrating because you compromise and you set up the whole time. You have to compromise power down for braking performance, and you get it set up for a high-speed sweeper and then you have a hairpin the next corner that you have to set up for, too. I got to a point in Supercar where the rules were so close that the car was never right and it was frustrating. Here on the ovals, it’s very pure. It’s a pure form of racing. When the car is dialed in, it’s a special feeling.”

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Marcos Ambrose, Busch Series, NASCAR, Australia, Sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Asian MotorSports Blog