Ambrose claims first Nationwide win

The former Australian V8 Supercar Champion had been close to victory a few times already but victory had eluded him. This time though a good strategy coupled with a light right foot allowed him to coast to his first NASCAR win.

Ambrose pitted for the last time for fuel with 32 laps remaining and right before the fifth caution of the day came out. Jeff Burton and Jimmie Johnson had been battling for the lead ahead of him but they both ran out of fuel in the last five laps as they had pitted before the Australian.

With four laps remaining Ambrose inherited the lead, which he nursed all the way to the chequered flag.

"It was so good to get that off my back," said a joyful Ambrose. "I've come so far to this. First time, I just can't believe. A lot of these guys have never won. I had never won in America. It just feels so good."

"We've come so close so many times and today was our day. In the end I just quite didn't have enough car. We didn't quite hit the set up the way we wanted to but we had enough to stay with them, just couldn't race as hard as I wanted to but the race came our way.

"It was a shame for Jimmie Johnson, the 48 was just a rocket. He probably had the pace to win but today we're here in victory lane and he's not."

The last lap was nerve wrecking for Ambrose as he caught up with Boris Said. The pair collided at Mexico City earlier this year and some payback was looming as Said didn't make things easy for the race leader on the last few miles. Ambrose tried to avoid wrecking his race, while keeping an eye on his mirrors as a group of four cars led by Kyle Busch edged closer.

Ambrose's race though was not without incidents. On the first lap he tapped the rear of Jeff Burton's machine, sending him into a spin at the entry to the esses. Then on lap 41 and one corner ahead, he had a similar incident with Sam Hornish Jr who ended up spinning and being collected by Mexican rookie Antonio Perez.

Kyle Busch's road-course winning streak came to an end but still the Sprint Cup series points leader came home in a strong second place driving the No. 92 Toyota Camry for Eddie D'hondt, the third Nationwide series team he has raced for this season.

He ran on a completely different pitting sequence than other top finishers electing to pit later for the first time. He then was penalized for a pit-road violation which sent him to the back of the pack under caution but he made the most of it by taking fuel also to be able to run non-stop to the end of the race.

Filling Busch's mirrors for the last part of the race was Matt Kenseth, closely followed by Kevin Harvick and pole-sitter Dario Franchitti, who claimed his best ever result in the Nationwide series with a fifth-place finish.

Meanwhile the race ended up disappointingly for Burton and Johnson, the latter making a rare double-header on a road-course this weekend. The reigning Sprint Cup champion looked like the driver to beat but both him and Burton ran so hard battling up front in the end that they ran each other out of fuel.

"I wish we were leading when it happened," Johnson said. "We knew we were in trouble and were counting on cautions but we're not racing for points and it wouldn't be a big deal. I think everybody knew our car was fast today and I had a good time, it was fun racing with those guys."

For Burton the race was incident-filled. Following his first lap spin after contact with Ambrose he then got into the back of a lapped car. The incident brought out the caution but he had already committed to the pits for repairs, tyres and fuel when that happened. He eventually moved to the front as a consequence, as almost everyone else came down pit road a couple of laps later.

Then with 21 laps remaining he got spun by Kyle Busch while battling for the lead of the race. Busch was on the inside of him entering the last corner and the RCR driver closed the door and both spun in a cloud of tyre-smoke.

Amazingly the incident only lost Burton one spot after both made synchronized 360's. However Burton paid Busch back a few laps later by bumping him out of the lead although his joy was set to be short-lived due to the lack of caution laps, which didn't allow him, nor Johnson, to stretch their fuel mileage in the end.

"I didn't know if the 29 (Jeff Burton) could make it the rest of the way or not, and judging by the way that he couldn't make it the rest of the way, then he shouldn't have raced me that way," Busch said.

"I got on his inside and he chopped me, we wrecked. It killed my left-front fender; it killed my tow and everything else. People would say that if you knew that then you should have backed off and just waited for him to pit -- I didn't know -- none of us knew."

Brad Keselowski was the highest finishing Nationwide series regular in sixth place ahead of Joey Logano who got better as the race went on in only his second ever road-course outing in NASCAR.

Points leader Clint Bowyer ended up only 23rd after being spun out by Carl Edwards as soon as lap 29, when the reigning Nationwide series champion overshoot his braking point on a restart at turn one.

With Edwards finishing 25th, Keselowski regains second in the standings and narrows the gap to Bowyer down to 128 points.

Pos  Driver                Make       Laps
 1.  Marcos Ambrose        Ford        82
 2.  Kyle Busch            Toyota      82
 3.  Matt Kenseth          Ford        82
 4.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet   82
 5.  Dario Franchitti      Dodge       82
 6.  Brad Keselowski       Chevrolet   82
 7.  Joey Logano           Toyota      82
 8.  Jason Leffler         Toyota      82
 9.  David Ragan           Ford        82
10.  Brad Coleman          Ford        82
11.  Max Papis             Chevrolet   82
12.  Ryan Newman           Dodge       82
13.  Mike Bliss            Chevrolet   82
14.  Jeff Burton           Chevrolet   82
15.  David Reutimann       Toyota      82
16.  Bobby Hamilton Jr     Ford        82
17.  Kelly Bires           Ford        82
18.  Mike Wallace          Toyota      82
19.  Robby Gordon          Dodge       82
20.  Brian Simo            Chevrolet   82
21.  Kenny Wallace         Chevrolet   82
22.  Patrick Carpentier    Dodge       82
23.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet   82
24.  Morgan Shepherd       Chevrolet   81
25.  Carl Edwards          Ford        81
26.  Stanton Barrett       Chevrolet   81
27.  Boris Said            Ford        81
28.  Steve Wallace         Chevrolet   79
29.  Jimmie Johnson        Chevrolet   78
30.  Dale Earnhardt Jr     Chevrolet   78
31.  Landon Cassill        Chevrolet   76
32.  Jason Keller          Chevrolet   68
33.  Stan Barrett          Chevrolet   61
34.  Denny Hamlin          Toyota      59
35.  Wheeler Boys          Chevrolet   41
36.  Sam Hornish Jr        Dodge       40
37.  Antonio Perez         Dodge       39
38.  PJ Jones              Dodge       23
39.  Stan Silva Jr         Chevrolet   21
40.  Brandon Whitt         Ford         8
41.  Dale Quarterley       Chevrolet    7
42.  Michael McDowell      Chevrolet    3
43.  Chris Cook            Chevrolet    0