MEXICO CITY -- Through the first eight races of this Nationwide Series season, Marcos Ambrose had done nothing to equal his spectacular, top-10 point performance in his 2007 rookie season.

In his 44th career start in JTG Racing's No. 59 Ford, he scored his best finish, a second-place effort, in Sunday's Corona Mexico 200 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. But it was not without a price.

Official Results

Corona Mexico 200

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
2.	Marcos Ambrose	Ford
3.	Scott Pruett	Dodge
4.	Carl Edwards	Ford
5.	Patrick Carpentier	Dodge
6.	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet
7.	Scott Wimmer	Chevrolet
8.	Brad Keselowski	Chevrolet
9.	Mike Bliss	Chevrolet
10.	Steve Wallace	Chevrolet

• Results | Videos | Photos

Sunday morning, the Tasmanian native Ambrose decided to do something about his bad streak. His fourth-place qualifying run was incentive, but getting sent to the rear at the start for a transmission change was the trigger.

He admitted making a decision to race like the proverbial Tasmanian devil -- the cartoon version, that is.

On two early restarts, he actually drove down the dirt verge to the left of the front straightaway; and on another restart, race winner Kyle Busch said Ambrose forced him off the track at the same place. Those were just the start of Ambrose's fireworks.

"Yeah, you're in the hole -- we've had a tough year," Ambrose said of his season, which had a best finish of 11th coming into Mexico and four worse than 23rd. "We really wanted to have a strong day [Sunday]. You're not going to go and pass 43 cars 15 times like we did without being aggressive -- and you've got to be in this, racing to try and come through.

"It was really tough racing. It's some of the hardest racing I've ever done there that last 20 laps. I'll probably look back at this race as probably one of my best races in just having to fight all day. Everything was against us, but we fought all day and came through."

The result was a sometimes spectacular, sometimes hairy and sometimes breathtaking drive.

But in the process, Ambrose had NASCAR road-racing veteran Boris Said vowing to take revenge for being wrecked in the last third of the event, and the race winner wrinkling his nose over Ambrose's tactics.

Said's incident occurred on a restart after the fifth of seven cautions, when the pair were racing in around 15th position. They made it through Turn 1, but Ambrose collected the back of Said's No. 25 Team Rensi Ford, pushed it all the way to the entrance of the following left-hander, and then spun it out.

Said rotated back onto the track and into the path of Max Papis' No. 64 Rusty Wallace Racing Chevrolet, which damaged the 64 and ended the 25's race -- and Said's string of three consecutive top-five finishes here.

Said was plainly incensed during an ESPN television interview.

"My team Ford Fusion driver Marcos Ambrose just cheap-shotted me and took me out," Said said. "He hooked my left-rear in Turn 1; he had me sideways for a while and then just turned me around.

"I'm not going to cry about it, but I'm going to go apologize to his crew chief because it's going to cost him a car."

Said did just that, walking the length of pit road to speak to Ambrose's crew chief Gary Cogswell -- a conversation in which Cogswell appeared to be conciliatory, but Said ended by jabbing a finger twice into Cogswell's chest.

"We were in great position," Said said. "There's bumping and banging and then there's cheap shots and that was a cheap shot. Everything else that I saw was good, clean, hard, rough racing."

For his part, Ambrose -- who briefly left the interview area to sit on a set of steps overlooking the racetrack for a few moments before returning to the briefing -- was extremely contrite.

"I really want to first apologize to Boris on one of those restarts -- I got into him and spun him out and ended his day [and] I just want to answer those questions now before they come up," Ambrose said. "I feel bad for him but our day has been fantastic and I'm really proud of my Kingsford guys -- we fought all day and never gave up."

If Said is true to his words, which obviously were uttered in the heat of the moment, the pair may not have seen their last on-track set-to.

Ambrose, a two-time V8 Supercar champion in Australia first said Cogswell should not have been involved in the situation, but that he would also be sure to speak to Said, whom he called an "idol" of his.

"There's no point in getting in the crew chief's face because he's not driving the car," Ambrose said. "I'm going to ring [Said] on Monday and hopefully sleep will help him just think through things a little bit more.

"I value Boris' friendship and he is a fantastic racer. I didn't mean to do it -- I don't know what happened, to be honest with you. I had pretty square contact and all of a sudden, he's up-speed and off to the left -- I caught his rear bumper bar in mine. I don't know what happened, it wasn't intentional. Racing happens. Look at the deal last year [in Montreal] with Robby Gordon [who spun out Ambrose late in the race while running for the win]. Bad stuff happens out there and it's unfortunate.

"I'll apologize to him to his face. I'll apologize to him [Sunday] in front of the media. I can't take it back. I wish I didn't do it. I don't know how it happened and that's all I can really say.

"If he wants to come talk to me about it, I'd like to sit down and just find some common ground. It's just unfortunate that that stuff happens but that's what racing is all about. That's what fans turn out for."

Busch, who has been in his share of hard racing, said at times what he saw Sunday crossed a line.

"These guys were battling like it was coming to the end of the race, which it was -- but we don't have V8 Supercars and we can't body slam each other and take each other out," Busch said. "The 59 [Ambrose] spun two guys out on the restarts and somebody else spun the 6 [David Ragan] out and it was just mayhem."

Busch said he didn't appreciate Ambrose's running him off the track on the previous restart.

"It was eventful, there," Busch said. "He was going low to either pass somebody or block my low line getting into [Turn] 1. I put it on the outside and figured if I was going to do something, I'd get on his outside and be on the inside for the next turn.

"I was just trying to make something out of nothing, but he just forced me off the track and I let it fall back in line. Again, I got on his outside coming through [Turn] 4 and going into the first ess he pushed me off into the grass. That just got me all jumbled up -- but it's just a product of road-course racing. Yes, you're trying to protect your position, but I think he was a little over the top."

Busch did say he appreciated Ambrose letting him cleanly by when he finally passed on his way to the win.