Keeping up appearances: Ambrose busy in offseason

The season may be over, but Marcos Ambrose hardly has slowed down.

A television crew from the Outdoor Channel program "Gold Fever" joined Ambrose for a week of filming in Tasmania last week for a show to be aired early next year.

More recently, Ambrose was honored with the prestigious Sir Jack Brabham Award by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, the governing body of motorsport in Australia.

Come Jan. 14-16, Ambrose will compete in the Dubai 24 Hour sports car race at the Dubai Autodrome. He will drive the No. 148 Ferrari F430 GT2 of the AF Corse team, partnered by Rob Kaufman, Michael Waltrip, Rui Aguas and Niki Cadei.

AF Corse team owner Kaufman is also a co-owner of Michael Waltrip Racing, with which Ambrose's team, JTG Daugherty Racing, has a close technical alliance.

"It is a bit out of left field," Ambrose said. "Rob Kaufman has his own race team in Europe that he 'plays with' and because JTG Daugherty Racing has an association with MWR I thought it would be great fun to go across and help Rob out.

"It will help me out too because it gets me back behind the wheel of a race car again before the season starts. I've never been to Dubai and I've never raced a 24-hour race over in the Middle East, so it's a racing first for me.

Ambrose has previous experience in GT and sports car racing, entering the Grand-Am Rolex Sportscar Series event at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal earlier this year with fellow Sprint Cup Series driver Carl Edwards.

The Australian driver competed in the GT class at the 2005 Daytona 24 Hour in a Porsche GT3 Cup car with fellow Australians Paul Morris, Craig Baird and John Teulen.

"A 24 Hour race is a different mind-set. It's not about running the car at ten-tenths. It's about running the car at seven-tenths all day and looking after the gearbox, the brakes and the engine. I'm looking forward to it and it should be fun," Ambrose said.

Award winner

Ambrose was in New South Wales this past weekend for the Sydney Telstra 500, the final event of the 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series, when he was presented with the Sir Jack Brabham Award by CAMS president Andrew Papadopoulos.

The award is in recognition of the remarkable achievements of Sir Jack Brabham OBE, the outstanding Australian engineer and driver who rose to the pinnacle of world motorsport. The Sir Jack Brabham Award recognizes outstanding achievement and success by an Australian motorsport competitor at the international level.

The recipient must demonstrate outstanding talent, determination and a significant level of success in international competition.

Sir Jack Brabham is a three-time Formula One World Champion and remains the only man in history to win the F1 title in a car of his own make.

"The award is unexpected and I feel privileged to be given the nod for it," Ambrose said. "Sir Jack is obviously a hero of mine, as all the Brabhams are, to be honest. It's a real racing dynasty. So I take that honor with pride.

"Jack and the whole Brabham family are pioneers in Australian racing and it's a privilege to be given the honor of this award and I hold it in high regard and I am very thankful that I've been given the nod for it."

Ambrose moved to the United States in 2006, leaving behind a successful five-year career in V8 Supercars that yielded two championships to pursue a career in NASCAR.

Gold standard

Ambrose will take the spectacular scenery of his home state of Tasmania to millions of television viewers in the United States as he co-stars in episodes of "Gold Fever" on the Outdoor Channel.

The filming commenced with a media event at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine last Monday, where Ambrose and show host Tom Massie were given a tour of the Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre by Brant Webb, one of the survivors of the 2006 Beaconsfield mining disaster.

"Last week was amazing," Ambrose said. "We showed them a great time for six days in the Tasmanian bush and it was just a lot of fun.

"We did some camping, went down some mine shafts, did some gold panning, meet some characters in the local towns and stuff and it was just a really, really great trip and I'm pleased to have been able to facilitate it."

Since moving to the U.S., Ambrose has taken up gold prospecting and panning as a hobby, venturing out in the countryside around Charlotte, N.C., where his young family is based in search of gold. Ambrose also has visited several former gold sites around the country as he travels the U.S. on during the NASCAR schedule.