Marcos Ambrose Extends Record of Road Racing Bad Luck

The hits just keep on coming for Marcos Ambrose in his bid to take checkered flags when NASCAR has a road course event.

Ambrose, NASCAR's resident Aussie and a road racing phenom, once again saw a better-than-good shot at winning Sunday's Nationwide Series race in Montreal slip away -- just, of course, as he was preparing to drive away from the competition.

A faulty battery and a miserable attempt at trying to change it in the pits dropped Ambrose from the lead to two laps down quicker than a spectator making a trip to the concession stand.

The sad part of all of this is that you could have almost seen it coming. Even as he made a wild save with his car completely sideways in the grass while charging for the lead or when he stalked Carl Edwards and passed the No. 99 for the race's top spot.

Sure, Ambrose took the checkers earlier this August during the Nationwide event at Watkins Glen -- a race he's now won three straight times -- but he still hasn't won in the Sprint Cup series and there's no doubting that he's been a part of some pretty miserable defeats in NASCAR races where drivers turn left and right. Such heartbreaks have included:


Ambrose looked to be well on his way to his first ever Sprint Cup victory earlier this season at Infineon Raceway. After putting the No. 47 at the top spot for some 35 of the 110 laps, Ambrose found himself on the edge of a fuel window when the caution waved with eight laps left.

Trying to save fuel (unnecessarily, it turns out), Ambrose shut off his engine when the field was catching the pace car. The motor, though, didn't re-fire quickly enough as Ambrose climbed the hill toward turn two and NASCAR judged him to be in violation of their rule requiring him to maintain pace with the caution car. Ambrose was dropped back in the field and could never recover -- certainly a mistake that still haunts him.


Once again, Ambrose was the class of the field north of the border and -- finally -- looked to be sealing the deal in a race that had haunted him for two seasons. Ambrose took the white flag with a firm grip on the lead, though Carl Edwards was still in reach.

Ambrose rounded the heralded Montreal circuit as Edwards slightly closed, and made his fateful mistake in the final corner. Ambrose got in too deep, jumped the curb and lost momentum. The mistake was enough for Edwards to jump on the gas and he made full use by passing Ambrose with the checkered flag waving.


Chalk this one up as the first time we saw what kind of luck Ambrose had -- as well as what Robby Gordon would do for a win. The former Australian V8 Supercar champion led 37 of 75 laps during NASCAR's first visit to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but was part of the late-race mess that featured burn-outs by two cars, prompted NASCAR to dish out some penalties and left fans begging for more.

Plenty of contact was made, Kevin Harvick was named the winner and, well, the video tells the rest of the story.