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Commentary from Mexico: Busch Impressive, But Ambrose Pushes the Edge

By Jeff Gluck, SceneDaily.com

Apr 21, 2008

Jeff Gluck of SceneDaily.com gives his perspective on the NASCAR race in Mexico City. SceneDaily reports will run on WRAL.com this year.


MEXICO CITY – The flight back to the United States is only a few hours away, and I’ve still avoided getting sick.

• This just in: Kyle Busch is pretty darn good. Not only has he won three consecutive Nationwide Series races, but the guy has gone to victory lane six times in NASCAR’s three major series this year.

Six trophies in 10 weeks of racing. That’s just slightly amazing. No wonder he said last week that his trophy room at home is filling up with so many pieces of hardware that he fears it might collapse onto his garage below.

• It was good to see friendly Australian Marcos Ambrose drive to a runnerup finish in Mexico, though he certainly ruffled some feathers along the way. Boris Said – usually not one to get too upset at other drivers – nearly threw his helmet at Ambrose’s car after getting wrecked, and vowed to seek revenge the next time they race together.

Said and Kyle Busch were among those who said Ambrose was racing on the edge of being out of control. On the other hand, it’s a fine line between being out of control and simply racing hard, and Ambrose probably did some of both.

• Earlier in the weekend, Erik Darnell, Kelly Bires and Landon Cassill each talked about how they were driving their first-ever road course races in NASCAR. Darnell hadn’t driven any type of road-course race since his Late Model days, and Cassill’s last road-course event was in karts.

Yet all three drove a respectable race, with Cassill’s 23rd-place finish leading the way. Both he and Darnell finished on the lead lap – Darnell was 26th in his Nationwide debut – while Bires’ result was thwarted by a transmission problem at the end of the race, leaving him 31st.

Still, that all three of the drivers finished ahead of noted road racers Said, Colin Braun and Michel Jourdain shouldn’t be overlooked.

• Speaking of Braun, the 19-year-old made quite an impression by winning the pole in his first career NASCAR road race. Braun has plenty of experience on road courses from his sports car racing background, but taking the pole in Mexico City was still a mild surprise.

Braun probably still is a couple years from being competitive on oval tracks (he’s 20th in Craftsman Truck Series points after four races), but he certainly opened some eyes on the road course this weekend.

Carl Edwards relayed a story from Said, who apparently called Braun, “The best I’ve ever seen.” That’s pretty impressive in itself, and despite his misfortune in Sunday’s race, one wonders if we’ll see Braun racing at Montreal this summer or even in the Cup race at Infineon Raceway (he could perhaps drive for Yates Racing, which has an agreement with Braun’s Roush Fenway Racing team).

• Mexico City is much better than people say it is. For the most part, it was like any other big city – there were good and bad areas, and if you keep out of dicey situations, it seems easy to avoid trouble.

Still, there’s no place like home, and it’ll be good to be back in the United States later tonight.