Marcos Ambrose endured a heart-breaking end to his debut race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup after he was forced into retirement in the closing stages of the Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway.
Ambrose, who had set the pace in practice at the wheel of the #21 Little Debbie Honey Buns Ford Fusion, ran as high as second and was one of the fastest cars on the track throughout the race but then suffered a gearbox failure on lap 84 following contact from the #19 car of Elliott Sadler.
The hit came just as Ambrose was engaging first gear under braking into turn seven, breaking the gear and putting a hole in the gearbox casing. With oil spewing from underneath his Ford, Ambrose's day was done and he immediately parked his car in pitlane.
Ambrose had started from seventh position and made a cautious start, dropping to ninth off the line before climbing back up the order to fourth before pitting under caution on lap 29. He lay 17th on the restart due to differing strategies throughout the field, but climbed back into the top ten, and after making his second stop lay just outside the podium positions.
Following another caution, Ambrose made a run down the inside of fellow Ford driver Jamie McMurray, who did not make things easy for Ambrose, squeezing the Australian right to the inside of the circuit entering the hairpin.
He managed to slip down the inside of McMurray, but in doing so, clipped the rear bumper of
Juan Pablo Montoya, which sent the Colombian into a half spin and elevated Ambrose into second position.
At the final restart with 33 laps remaining, Ambrose was right behind leader Kyle Busch, only to be jumped by McMurray, dropping him to third. David Gilliland and Tony Stewart also took advantage and made their way past, putting in Ambrose in fifth – with the contact from Sadler then following to bring his race to an end.
"As he hit me I was just downchanging into first gear," Ambrose explained. "I'm not sure exactly what broke it, but the impact was at just the wrong time and enough to break a gear.
