Head2Head: Who is the current king of the road?

If I've only got one shot to win a road-course race, there's no question I'm going with NASCAR's ace, Tony Stewart.

Smoke has seven wins and four runner-up finishes in 22 Sprint Cup Series road course events. Based on that performance, when he's turning left and right, there's a 50 percent chance he'll finish in the top two (he has done so in seven of the past eight Watkins Glen races). How can you bet against those odds?

In addition to being able to deftly slalom a Cup car through the turns, Stewart has a keen ability to communicate what he needs to make a bad car good. He asked for those changes early in Monday's race, helping him capture a track-best fifth victory.

Jeff Gordon used to reign supreme as king of the road before Stewart burst onto the scene. But with just one top-10 finish in the past nine races at The Glen, Gordon has lost a bit of his shine. Kyle Busch showed flashes of brilliance last year, sweeping all NASCAR road course events, but he's still too much Jekyll and Hyde to bank on.

Marcos Ambrose has quickly applied his V8 Supercar skills to the Cup cars. Coming just one position shy of a weekend sweep was impressive, but to be the best, you have to beat the best ... something he has yet to do.

Until one of the aforementioned can consistently outperform Stewart, there's no reason to bet against him with the money on the line.

If I need someone to drive one road race for me, I'm picking up the phone and saying, "G'day mate" to Marcos Ambrose.

In a short amount of time, he has shown that he is the future of road-course racing in the sport. Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart set the bar; Ambrose is going to raise it.

Jason wants to talks percentages -- well here is one he failed to mention: While Stewart is amazing at The Glen, he's not that strong at Sonoma. In fact, Stewart has just four top-fives in 11 Wine Country starts, that's 36 percent.

Ambrose on the other hand, has been masterful. He's made four starts and finished in the top five in three of them. At The Glen he's 2-for-2 with a third and a second and at Sonoma he finished third and 42nd, but that blemish was due to a bad transmission, not Ambrose's fault.

And that's what separates Ambrose. He's showing road-course dominance in lesser equipment. Imagine how imposing he would be in a top-notch car.

Even more impressive is that it doesn't matter which road course he's on -- he's amazing. In the Nationwide Series, seven starts among Mexico City, Montreal and Watkins Glen -- two wins, four top-fives and six top-10s.

In all, Ambrose has 11 NASCAR road-course starts with two wins, seven top-fives and nine top-10s across four different tracks. Those are percentages I want on my team.