WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Either way, it was a gamble. If Marcos Ambrose chose to make a full pit stop, he'd have fresh tires but be mired deep in the field as the final laps wound down at Watkins Glen International. If he came in for fuel only, he'd have track position but older rubber. Ambrose and crew chief Frank Kerr debated the issue again and again on the radio, trying to decide which way to go.

Final Laps

Tony Stewart holds off Marcos Ambrose to score his fifth victory at Watkins Glen.

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Ultimately, they chose the splash-and-go. It was enough to get the No. 47 up to the front in Monday's rain-postponed event -- but not enough to catch eventual winner Tony Stewart. The Australian-born driver settled for a career-best second place finish in a Cup event, and might have been able to challenge for the victory had he had fresher tires.

"We didn't quite have enough to get Tony there at the end," Ambrose said. "I threw everything I could at him. We got off strategy for some run the way the race rolled for us. We got stuck. We got stuck in the back of the pack, had to make a gamble. We came in and splashed off fuel, didn't put tires on it. I think that was the difference between first and second here this afternoon, was just the extra laps I did on my tires, probably eight or 10 more laps than Tony. I could close in on him, I could see him starting to make a few little mistakes, locking tires, but not enough for me to catch him."

It was a stressful afternoon of pit strategizing for the JTG Daugherty team, which started Monday's race in fourth place and with a car that had been fastest in the final two practice sessions. And Ambrose seemed to have the field right where he wanted it after the first caution period, when he stayed out of the pits to take the lead and seize track position on a road course where passing is often difficult.

But it proved to be a fateful decision. Staying out got the No. 47 up front, but the way the ensuing cautions and pit stops fell forced Ambrose to make a full stop earlier than expected. That put him behind in the field, and knocked him off sequence with the other contenders in terms of tires. The late splash-and-go got him back up front, but the winner of Saturday's Nationwide Series restarted on tires too old to enable him to sweep the weekend.

"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."