Ambrose 18th in Texas

Marcos Ambrose has had a steady run in the O’Reilly 300 to net 18th place at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas today.

Ambrose collected his third top 20 finish from the past four races in the #59 Kingsford Hickory Ford Fusion at the fast 1.5-mile speedway.

The finish sees the Australian maintain 16th in the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series standings after seven of 35 races.

Today’s race was largely uneventful for Ambrose and on the whole, the race had fewer caution periods than is usually the case.

This meant that Ambrose, who had a loose (oversteer) race car for much of the 200-lap race, only had minimal opportunities to make set-up chances at pit stops.

Nevertheless, 18th is a solid result for Ambrose as he aims to reacquaint himself with new crew chief Gary Cogswell and the consistent run today will have no doubt helped that cause.

Only six of the top 20 drivers in today’s race were Nationwide Series only drivers, with nine of the top 10 finishers at Texas all full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers.

Kyle Busch won today’s O’Reilly 300 ahead of Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer.

Ambrose and JTG Racing will be back in action next weekend for the Bashas Supermarkets 300 at Phoenix International Raceway on April 11.

Marcos Ambrose - #59 Kingsford Hickory Ford Fusion

“We finished the race and learned some more, which was important this weekend as we had a new crew chief,� said Ambrose.

“We’re pretty pleased with that. It wasn’t stellar, and we were loose in all day, but with our direction I’m really excited and feel confident. The racing just got away today.

“There weren’t many cautions today so we didn’t have much opportunity to make adjustments at the stops. I mean, we’re brand-new, and we’ve got a brand-new set-up on the car, and we’re really happy how things progressed.

“We had speed at certain times of the race. We just were slow at the wrong times when it had long green runs. But, I’m very excited, and I think we’re building something pretty good here.�