Ambrose has 'unfinished business' in NASCAR 

One day Marcos Ambrose plans to retire to Australia, to return for good to a small part of his native land that's so wild, so pristine, that you can wander for five minutes and be in the middle of nowhere. He feels somewhat temporary in the United States, given that it takes a 27-hour flight home to see extended family, and video conferencing is his primary link to his wife and daughters when they're on the other side of the world. All that will change when his driving days are over, and he returns permanently to the small island state from whence he came.

And yet, recent days have raised the possibility of Ambrose returning to Australia much sooner than anyone anticipated. The 33-year-old announced last week that he will split from his JTG/Daugherty Racing team at the end of this season, a miserable campaign plagued by accidents and defined by one heartbreaking afternoon at Infineon Raceway. Right now, he has no NASCAR ride for 2011. One possible option is a return to Down Under, where Ambrose won a pair of V8 Supercar titles before pursuing a career in NASCAR, and is still a popular -- if somewhat polarizing -- figure.

Marcos Ambrose

Season-to-date stats

No.	Race	Start	Finish
1.	Daytona	18	41
2.	Fontana	26	35
3.	Las Vegas	32	14
4.	Atlanta	12	11
5.	Bristol	9	33
6.	Martinsville	31	11
7.	Phoenix	4	11
8.	Texas	32	17
9.	Talladega	28	37
10.	Richmond	20	9
11.	Darlington	7	25
12.	Dover	26	36
13.	Charlotte	34	36
14.	Pocono	16	30
15.	Michigan	24	15
16.	Sonoma	6	6
17.	Loudon	12	13
18.	Daytona	28	32
19.	Chicago	23	28
20.	Indianapolis	41	21
21.	Pocono	19	39

• Career statistics

"It's realistic," Ambrose said Tuesday on a conference call, when asked about the odds of him returning home to race. "You know, I've spoken to a few people down there, and all have been well received, and it's actually been in the papers and on national television over the last few days. So, you know, obviously I'm not ruling out the possibilities of me returning and where I would potentially go."

Ambrose's position as a non-Chase contender in NASCAR belies his status in Australia, where his every move makes headlines. The daily newspaper in Hobart, the largest city in Ambrose's home state of Tasmania, carries regular updates about his NASCAR exploits. After his breakthrough 2009 season, Ambrose landed the No. 7 spot when a top Australian business magazine published its annual list of the country's highest-paid sports figures. Last week, Ambrose's Australian media manager told a Brisbane newspaper that the driver had options among V8 Supercar teams that had not yet signed drivers for 2011.

At the same time, though, you wonder how much of this is leverage, especially considering that Ambrose's former V8 Supercar team owner told the same Brisbane newspaper that the idea of Ambrose returning to Australia is a long shot, and that his next NASCAR deal -- presumably with Richard Petty Motorsports -- is almost done. Tuesday, Ambrose didn't exactly sound like a man with a contract in front of him. But he did sound like a driver who's sacrificed an awful lot to try and make it in NASCAR, and isn't ready to give up yet.

"My heart is in NASCAR, to be honest with you," he said. "I've got unfinished business at this level of racing. I feel like I've become part of the sport, but I haven't become a contender on a weekly basis, and I feel like if I left now, I would feel like I've got unfinished business. I would like to stay here in America if I could, but if it doesn't work out, I have taken a risk right now. I have jumped out of the team that I had, fully-sponsored and I was contracted to drive for 2011. And right now, I don't have any contract on the table to sign. So there is a risk involved with that. I understand the risks, and I am willing to take any outcome from this point and deal with it. But if I could, I would love to stay in NASCAR and finish off what I started."

It's hard to blame him, really, given the commitment it's taken to get to this point. Ambrose first came to the United States in 2005 with no guarantees, and essentially spent his honeymoon in Daytona Beach, Fla., meeting with manufacturer representatives. When he came back -- no small feat given the 27 hours of air travel required to fly between Charlotte and his hometown of Launceston, Tasmania -- he had a new baby in tow. His family lives for several months of the year in Australia while Marcos competes in the United States, and after the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway he's usually on the first flight home.

All of which had to make what happened in late June at Infineon that much more difficult to take. Ambrose's best finish on the Sprint Cup tour is second, earned last year at Watkins Glen International. But at Infineon he seemed on the brink of scoring that long-awaited first victory -- until during a late caution period he shut off his No. 47 Toyota trying to save fuel, coasted backward a few spots under yellow, and was forced to restart in seventh after NASCAR deemed that he had not kept pace with the caution car. It was a crushing mistake, made all the worse by the miserable season surrounding it. (Continued)