NASCAR's top imports find Pocono filling, rewarding

LONG POND, Pa. -- Marcos Ambrose can't wait to return to Pocono Raceway in a couple of months.

Making his first start at the triangular track, Ambrose finished sixth Sunday in the Pocono 500, characterizing the unique tri-oval as one of the toughest on which he's ever raced.

Call it beginners luck or perhaps love at first sight, Ambrose exited his car after the race with a smile stretched ear-to-ear as if he wanted to go another 500 miles.

Ambrose

Montoya

Hornish

"I've got to work on my elbow strength, because my elbows are worn out. I've been working them all day," Ambrose said with a laugh. "So it's a tough place, but I think it's one of my favorite tracks I've ever been too. It's really tough to get around."

Armchair racers predicted Ambrose, a former sports-car road racer from Australia, would do well at Pocono because they liken the 2.5-mile track to a road course.

"It's got nothing to do with road courses," he said. "This place is insane how hard it is. Like no place I've ever been in my life. It was just a great day for our team. We had a fast car regardless of fuel strategy ... it's the first time I've had to save fuel at this level so I didn't know what to do so I was very conservative. I'm proud of my guys for putting me in that position and looking forward to next week and next week and next week."

Two other drivers with past success in other forms of auto racing also performed well.

Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Montoya finished eighth, notching his fifth top-10 of the season. Making the Chase was a goal set last season for the former Formula One racer who made the switch to NASCAR full time in 2007, and his crew chief thinks his chances are more realistic this year.

But Sunday's race was all about "good fuel mileage, the driver not giving up and great pit stops," said Brian Pattie, crew chief for Montoya's No. 42 Chevrolet.

Montoya remained 15th in the standings, 62 points out of the cutoff position. He proved he could run well at Pocono and has fared well on short tracks. But Pattie warned that won't be enough.

"If we're going to make the Chase we need to be competitive everywhere," he said. "We know what it takes to make it, we are beating our averages and bettering our finishes, we'll just keep working on it."

Also shortening his learning curve since abandoning the open-wheel ranks of the Indy Racing League is Penske Racing's Sam Hornish Jr. He posted his third top-10 of the season when he finished 10th in Sunday's race.

"We started off the race pretty good, but then we lost the handle on the car a bit. We got it back, got some grip and track position, and then we had to come in late to top off [for fuel] and try to make it to the end [of the race]," he said.

The performance was in stark contrast from his 42nd-place finish this time last season at Pocono, a track Hornish once feared he never would figure out.