Full Throttle

Well…, so much for the planned Grand Reconciliation at Watkins Glen.

Plans were all set for former antagonists Robby Gordon and Marcos Ambrose get together in a much friendlier setting than a week ago in Montreal.

With Robby Gordon prodded into providing a second car for Ambrose to make his NEXTEL Cup debut it was to be a marriage made in Heaven… well, lets just say a marriage and leave it at that.

But they never got to the Alter, or even rode to the Church. (Unless a road course is your place of Worship but that counts out about 90% of NASCAR Nation)

Last week Ambrose was spun under green by Gordon, this week Ambrose was spun out under a “Gray Flag” as mother nature intervened and rained out Cup qualifying. With no owners points assigned to the #77 Ambrose was to drive he’s outside looking in and his Cup debut will have to wait for another day.

Also outside looking in through rain spotted windows are Klaus Graf, A.J. Allmendinger, Ward Burton, Brian Simo and Boris Said. It’s Said’s second rain out, he also missed a chance to make the Pepsi 400 at Daytona last month because of rain.

UPDATE: Here are a couple quotes by Ambrose and Said after the qualy rainout, first Boris:

“For a part-time team, you don’t get to race that much, and two races in a row get taken away. I don’t understand why the schedule can’t be adjusted and just qualify tomorrow when it’s going to be sunny. It’s just hard for a small team. It pretty much puts us out of business. It puts me out of business. It’s just a lot of income lost.”

Agreed, there’s no reason why those that didn’t get a chance to qual couldn’t be allowed to do so the following morning. Even if it were to be very early, say 8-9am it would at least be fairer to everyone who otherwise would see cash spent on travel and entry fees lost.

Here is Ambrose in all his comedic glory when asked why he was still smiling:

“Always smile. Just the way the day’s gone. We got rained out, it delayed the session to start, then only got about six laps on the car. We were undercooked anyway, I was probably a steak tartar before qualifying. I’m just disappointed I couldn’t get a shot at qualifying into the race. But, we’ve been chased so much this week anyway. The media frenzy that has been created around this whole deal, it’s been great for me, personally. I can’t complain.”

Marcos has been “Americanized,” back home I have little doubt he would have said he was “Roo tartar.” (Which, I might add, is far better than Vegamite!)