Pit-strategy game leaves Ambrose one spot short (cont'd)

"It was the first stop," Ambrose said. "We were third. We stayed out. Everybody pitted, except for three cars. Then our destiny was set. We couldn't then, you know, pit with everybody else because we were off sequence. We had to just try to then run our own race, and just have the shortest pit stop we could as soon as we could make it home."

Than plan was derailed by a caution that forced the No. 47 into the pits earlier than expected. "When that caution came out, that 10 laps shy of our number, our lap number to make it home, we stopped, got tires, got fuel, then we splashed after 10 laps and came in and took off," Ambrose said. "That's the difference, right there. The very first caution flag is what set our course for the day."

“

It was the first stop. We were third. We stayed out. Everybody pitted, except for three cars. Then our destiny was set.

”

-- MARCOS AMBROSE

Tires weren't the team's only concern. There were also worries over whether Ambrose could make it on fuel, to the point where in the latter stages Kerr began asking his driver to save fuel whenever he could. They received something of a break in the form of the big accident involving Sam Hornish and Jeff Gordon, which stopped the race for nearly 20 minutes and led to three caution laps. Two more caution laps, these for debris, followed later in the event. Those yellow flags enabled the No. 47 team to make it to the end.

"If it wasn't for that caution at the end," Kerr said, "we'd have been in trouble."

Ambrose had one last chance in the double-file restart that followed the final caution. Stewart and Ambrose ran into 45-degree Turn 1 side-by-side, with Stewart in the advantageous inside position. Ambrose tried to turn hard around him, but never got the opening.

"Being a road race veteran like he is, he knows how to get the most out of his brakes. He knows how to make the most out of the braking zone," Stewart said. "My biggest concern was not letting him get to the inside, getting a good jump on the restart, not spinning the tires, not missing the shift, no mistakes into [Turn] 1. I figured I was going to have to go all the way to Turn 2 before I got it sorted out. The good thing is, he went from the outside lane and tried to come to the inside. We were able to take that line away from him, force him to go back out. That took his opportunity to get a run on us away. Once we got up through the esses, we were in good shape and never really had to worry about it from there on."

Reaction to the runner-up finish, which bettered third-place results recorded by Ambrose at Watkins Glen last season and at Infineon Raceway earlier this year, was mixed. No question there was satisfaction after such a solid run, as Ambrose told his team repeatedly over the radio how proud he was of them. But it was also clear they had finished one position shy of their ultimate goal.

"We'll get one soon," Ambrose said over team radio. Later, standing next to his race car on pit road, he was asked by a reporter if Monday's effort meant he had made it as a Cup driver.

"I've got to win," he said, without hesitation. "You've got to win before you can claim that you've made it."