Ambrose a quick study at high-banked Bristol

Throughout his 51-race Cup Series career, Marcos Ambrose has established himself as a tremendous road-course racer.

Rightly so. At Watkins Glen, Ambrose has a Driver Rating of 106.9. At Infineon, it's 99.6. In terms of the Loop Data statistic, The Glen ranks second, Infineon third.

But his best track? Bristol Motor Speedway.

Ambrose needed no time to adapt to Bristol's unique "cereal bowl" layout. The high banks, fast speeds, tight confines and constant two-wide racing seemed to fit the Australian perfectly.

Check out his two-race stats:

Ambrose explained his success at Bristol with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Honestly, I have no idea how I took so quickly to Bristol and I don't know whether or not I'm confident going back," Ambrose said. "It is a really tough track and you've got to do 500 laps around there somehow without having fender damage.

"I watched last year's race so I'm sort of mentally ready for it again. It went for a long time watching it on television -- let alone driving it. If you get the mindset that it's going to be a tough day, but you love the track and you love the challenge, then you are going to be OK."

Statistically, Ambrose proved his strength at all short tracks, not only Bristol. That's important, considering the next two races are at such venues.

In the six short track races last season (two each at Bristol, Martinsville and Richmond), Ambrose posted two top-10s, an average finish of 14.5, a Driver Rating of 80.8 (which was 14th best), an average running position of 16.3 and 47 fastest laps run.

His numbers would have been even stronger if not for a poor Martinsville Chase race. In that event, Ambrose finished 27th with a Driver Rating of 42.6.

Still, a 14th-ranked Driver Rating in short-track events last season is impressive. He ranked ahead of Chase contenders Brian Vickers (15th), Carl Edwards (18th), Greg Biffle (21st) and Kasey Kahne (22nd).

Many familiar faces pepper the top 10 in Driver Rating at short tracks last season.

On the other end of the "surprise" spectrum at Bristol sits Jimmie Johnson.

Oddly, his stats aren't good there. Well, they're good. Just not "Johnson good." At Bristol, Johnson has a Driver Rating of 82.5, making the track his second-worst in Driver Rating ahead of only Infineon (80.4).