WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- On Sunday evening at Watkins Glen International, Marcos Ambrose faced a mixture of emotions when, for the third consecutive year, a Saturday Nationwide Series victory didn't lead to a Cup win the next day.

Ambrose, despite leading three times in the first half of Sunday's race, had nowhere near as dominant a car as he did in winning on Saturday. What led to his frustration was the fact that at one point early in the race, his No. 47 seemed much better than race winner Juan Montoya's No. 42.

“

I want to win so bad in the Cup Series -- this was a really good chance for me.

”

-- MARCOS AMBROSE

But in the end, Montoya drove away to a 4.735-second margin of victory over Kurt Busch, who slipped past Ambrose on the penultimate lap to finish second.

"It's been a good weekend for me [but] I got to tell you it doesn't feel nice finishing third," Ambrose said. "I want to win so bad in the Cup Series -- this was a really good chance for me. We had a good race car [but] something went wrong in the last pit stop [and] we lost the handle on the race car."

For the second time in the past seven races, JTG Daugherty Racing crew chief Frank Kerr had to sit on the pit box late in an event and watch a great shot to win evaporate. At Infineon Raceway in June, Ambrose made a mistake while trying to save fuel. While leading under caution, he stalled the car on an uphill and finished sixth when it wouldn't immediately restart.

WGI was a different story for Ambrose, who led for the last time at lap 59.

"It was just on that last set of tires, the car wasn't very good," Kerr said as he marshaled his car through NASCAR's post-race inspection. "You can blame it on a lot of things, but it just wasn't as good on that set of tires."

Kerr said he made no radical adjustments with the tires.

"There's really not anything you can do to predict that," Kerr said. "You can look at the spring rates and everything else -- the date codes -- and think, 'That's as close as we can make it.'

"The air pressures we never changed all day. The car was that good, we didn't change it. The spring rates, the whole set was actually within five pounds, so we're at the mercy of what [Goodyear] says it rates."

Kerr had a hard time finding a word to describe his emotions as he sat atop his pit box watching Montoya increase his lead in big chunks over the final 17 laps after the last restart. (Continued)