Ambrose earns the pole on a very wet day in Montreal (NASCAR.com)
August 30, 2009
Talk about redemption.
Some seven hours and myriad raindrops after failing to get their entry to the starting grid for Saturday's Grand-Am race, Marcos Ambrose and Carl Edwards overcame wet conditions to grab the front row for Sunday's NAPA Auto Parts 200 Nationwide Series race.
Ambrose took at pole at 80.905 mph (120.542 seconds) at 2.709-mile , and Edwards claimed the second starting position at 80.116 mph (121.728), after crashing during warmup laps the Kevin Doran-owned Rolex Grand-Am car he and Ambrose were to share for the race.
Ron Fellows (79.717 mph), last year's race winner, qualified third, followed by Boris Said (78.902 mph) and Brad Coleman (78.837 mph). Jacques Villeneuve, Justin Marks, Antonio Perez, Andrew Ranger and Paul Menard will start from positions six through 10, respectively.
Marcos Ambrose had the windshi… NASCAR.com – Aug 29, 10:24 pm EDT Marcos Ambrose had the windshi… NASCAR.com – Aug 29, 10:24 pm EDT YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index = 1; YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_lazy_images = [http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/turner/5b/fullj.18f6d818fc30c506c6f7b0fbeba542f4/preview.nwide.mambrose200908290.jpg?x=180&y=200&xc=129&yc=1&wc=184&hc=204&q=70&sig=lmct3HykFEA0Yx9Ra02fUg--]; YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(window,load,YAHOO.Sports.articleLazyLoadCarousel.init); 1 of 2 NASCAR Gallery function prev_photo() { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index > 0) { goto_photo(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index – 1); } else { goto_photo(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index); }}function next_photo() { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index 0) { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_prev, prev); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_prev, prev_disabled); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_prev, prev_disabled); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_prev, prev); } if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index < YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_last_index) { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_next, next); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_next, next_disabled); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass(article_carousel_next, next_disabled); YAHOO.util.Dom.removeClass(article_carousel_next, next); }*/}function goto_photo(p) { if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos) { for(i = 0; i < YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos.length; i++) { if (i == p) { YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos[i], display, ); } else { YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos[i], display, none); } } if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page) { YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page.innerHTML =(p + 1); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index = p; } } update_buttons();}YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_init = function () { YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(article_carousel_prev, click, prev_photo); YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(article_carousel_next, click, next_photo); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_index = 0; YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_current_page = YAHOO.util.Dom.get(carousel_page); YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos = YAHOO.util.Dom.getElementsByClassName(item, div, leadphoto); if (YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_photos) { goto_photo(0); }}YAHOO.Sports.article_carousel_init();
Said, however, will start from the rear of the field after blowing an engine during his qualifying run.
Ambrose went out in the second of eight groups under the Nationwide road-course qualifying format, which features five- and six-car groups on the track at the same time. Edwards qualified in Group 6, and might have won the pole had he not been slowed by Jean-Francois Dumoulin on his fourth and final lap.
"Can you believe it?" Ambrose said. "We go in the sports-car race, and it ends so badly for us, and then we come out and lock the front row for the Nationwide race. It may be karma—I don't know. I just feel really badly for Kevin Doran and the whole team there, because we destroyed that car for them. … But we've gone from zero to hero."
Edwards acknowledged that Dumoulin might have cost him the pole, but considering the events earlier in the day, Edwards was fine with the outcome.
"[Saturday] did not start out well," Edwards said. "Marcos Ambrose and Kevin Doran and all the guys put together a great Daytona Prototype car, and we worked really hard on it, and I put it in the fence before the race even started.
"So it's kind of fitting. I would have loved to have been on the pole [Saturday], but I took Marcos' opportunity to race—at all—in that race. He had his suit on and everything. He looked like the kid who woke up on the 24th of December and thought it was Christmas and found out it wasn't.
"He got the pole, and it probably worked out well. … I owed him one—but now we're even."
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Earnhardt recovers from practice crash
Making his second start in the Nationwide Series—and his second on a road course—Jeffrey Earnhardt was the victim of an off-road excursion in Saturday morning's practice session, but afterwards neither the driver nor the car was worse for wear.
"I hit a puddle of water and just hydroplaned and went straight into the wall," Earnhardt said. "It wasn't too bad. It was just body damage, and we've got it fixed now."
Earnhardt's assessment was on the money. He qualified the No. 40 Key Motorsports Chevrolet in 25th place for Sunday's race.
He clocked the eighth-fastest time before morning practice was cut short by rain.
"I don't know, it's just something I took to. I was real iffy about it at first," said Earnhardt, who has raced late-model stock cars the past two years in the NASCAR Camping World Series East. "Then, after I ran a few laps and got the feel of everything it actually was a lot of fun. I was having a blast out there, going sideways."
The 20-year-old son of Kerry Earnhardt, Jeffrey made his first Nationwide start three weeks ago on the road course at Watkins Glen and finished a respectable 24th.
"Obviously, we were pretty good in the first part of practice," Earnhardt said. "I think we'll be pretty good. Hopefully, it's nicer. I don't really want to run in the rain after that."
Busch has a talented teacher
Series points leader Kyle Busch, winner of Friday night's Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland, made good use of the limited practice time he got at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Saturday. To hone his road-course chops, Busch got a critique from former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve, son of the driver for whom the track was named.
"He got behind me a little bit so, I asked him what I looked like, and he said it looked like I did everything fine," said Busch, who made his 12th-place qualifying run in extremely wet conditions. "It was a little bit wet out there [in practice], and it started drying out. He said, 'You were driving like it was wet, like it was raining, which is good if it's raining, just remember that. But it started to dry out, so go back and go into the regular groove when it starts to dry out, you'll go faster.'
"I didn't see the track really drying out, so I wasn't sure to go back over and move over a little bit. He gave me some good pointers."
Attractive venue for NASCAR
The official Montreal program has a $10 coupon inside for Rain-X windshield wipers, which would have come in handy on Saturday. It rained off and on in the morning, limiting track time, and all through qualifying.
The stands weren't entirely packed on Saturday, but the turnout for both Nationwide Series qualifying and the Grand-Am Rolex Series race was impressive nonetheless considering the inclement weather.
The 2.7-mile street circuit was damp from an early morning rain and cars were slipping and sliding in morning practice. The first session was interrupted for 40 minutes by heavy rain and the second was canceled as teams waited in vain for the track to dry in order to work on dry tires.
Max Papis had the quickest lap in morning practice. But he slid off course twice during qualifying and will start a disappointing 28th.
A year ago, it rained even harder on race day when Canadian Ron Fellows splashed his way to victory in the first NASCAR points race run on grooved rain tires, and the crowd was undeterred then, too.
"There were not that many umbrellas," Boris Said recalled. "We were under caution and I was going, 'This is unbelievable.' They were just sitting there and it's coming down. They were even here for qualifying. Don't they have jobs? I mean, they're fanatical race fans. I didn't expect it for NASCAR."
Said figures that both Volkswagen and Honda will join the Sprint Cup Series when the cars go to fuel injection.
He doesn't just work on race cars
Team owner Johnny Davis' transporter broke down 100 miles south of Montreal, still in the United States, thanks to the failure of an engine part that controls the rocker arm on the exhaust valve.
Davis already had flown ahead to Montreal when he got the news, but that didn't deter him from addressing the problem. Davis drove back across the border to Albany, N.Y., to pick up a replacement part.
He then drove to his broken hauler, fixed it himself and got the truck back on the road to Montreal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Nationwide Series Standings Pos.+/-DriverPointsBehind 1.—Kyle Busch3,900— 2.—Carl Edwards3,652-2483.—Brad Keselowski3,597-3034.—Jason Leffler3,353-5475.—Justin Allgaier2,843-1,0576.—Steve Wallace2,785-1,1157.—Jason Keller2,727-1,1738.—Mike Bliss2,713-1,1879.—Brendan Gaughan2,649-1,25110.—Michael McDowell2,608-1,292
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