Notes: Wallace in a groove with consecutive top-fives (cont'd)

Busy weekend for Ambrose

Marcos Ambrose will host 30 fellow Australians in Charlotte as part of a second annual tour event.

"We kicked off this idea last year and have twice as many fans back this time around," he said. "If there is one thing Australians know how to do, it's have a good time."

The group arrives Wednesday night and will venture to several local attractions Thursday before heading to Lowe's Motor Speedway for the evening's activities.

• Standings | Race | Series

On Friday, Ambrose will host a tour of the JTG shop, lunch and a night of sprint-car racing.

The group will root for Ambrose in Saturday night's Nationwide Series race and on Sunday, they head to a local bar to cheer on Australians Will Power and Ryan Briscoe in the Indianapolis 500 before heading to LMS for the Coca-Cola 600.

On Monday, they will take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience at LMS before flying back to Australia that afternoon.

Ambrose also plans a tour for August at Auto Club Speedway where he will run both the Nationwide and Cup races.

In the Loop: Lowe's

The statistics suggest Saturday night's race will likely come down to a battle between the defending series champion, a 27-time series race winner, and the hottest driver in the sport.

In other words, figure on Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch running up front all night.

Burton won the last time the series raced at Lowe's, and has finished in the top 10 in three of his past four races. In that span, he has a Driver Rating of 104.4 (best of any driver in Saturday's field), an Average Running Position of 13.6, 51 Fastest Laps Run and has run 69.4 percent of the Laps in the Top 15.

Edwards has struggled of late at the 1.5-mile track, finishing outside the top 10 in each of the previous three LMS races. But he won the spring race in 2006 and finished fourth in the fall race in 2005.

Overall at LMS, Edwards has a Driver Rating of 99.9, an Average Running Position of 12.9, a series-high 102 Fastest Laps Run and has run 61.9 percent of the Laps in the Top 15.

Busch, who won twice at LMS (spring, 2004-05), was the runner up this past fall and finished in the top 10 in both 2007 races. In his past six races at LMS, Busch has a Driver Rating of 103.3, an Average Running Position of 13.0, 57 Fastest Laps Run and a series-high percentage of Laps in the Top 15 (70.3) among those drivers who have run each of the past six races there.

Also watch for another strong run from series-only regular Kelly Bires, who finished ninth in last season's fall race, his first at the track in series competition. In that race, Bires had a Driver Rating of 89.6, an Average Running Position of 12.2 and ran 70.5 percent of the Laps in the Top 15.

Nationwide Series, etc.

• After Saturday, Joey Logano won't have to be only a Nationwide Series fan.

Logano, last year's NASCAR Camping World Series East champion, will turn 18 that day and will be eligible to drive in the Nationwide Series. His much-anticipated debut is set for the following week at Dover International Speedway.

Joe Gibbs Racing plans to help Logano celebrate at LMS with a car-shaped cake.

• Braun Racing will make the team's 100th start in a Toyota since it entered the series in 2007. Jason Leffler (No. 38), 2003 series champion Brian Vickers (No. 10) and Kyle Busch (No. 32) will team up to make the organization's 99th, 100th and 101st starts. Leffler earned the first victory for Toyota in the Nationwide Series this past July at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

• Due to his team's 30th-place standing in the owner points, Eric McClure can look forward to his first career series start at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He did not qualify in six previous attempts.

He has run in national series competition at the track, though, when he competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Showdown for Front Row Motorsports in 2005.

• Cale Gale will represent Veterans of Foreign Wars in the No. 77 Chevrolet at LMS. This isn't the first time he's worn the colors of VFW. Gale's T-ball team also was sponsored by VFW and his grandfather is a proud member of the organization.

Also to show support for America's Armed Forces, members of Kevin Harvick Inc.'s teams are wearing red bracelets provided by VFW.

This is the first race that Gale will have to qualify on time.

• Two-time series champion Harvick joins the ESPN coverage team as In-Race Reporter in the No. 33 Chevrolet, talking to analyst Rusty Wallace on the race's pace laps and during caution periods.