<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"         Who is Marcos Ambrose? Some guy from Tasmania who has been lucky enough to make a living out of racing cars.   My dad, Ross, raced back in the day so there must have been racing DNA in the gene pool. He went to England and started the Van Diemen racing company with Ralph Firman and had quite a storied history in the open-wheel scene in England.   I grew up with a fascination for go-karts and racing cars. It was a hobby and passion that carried throughout my life. After racing Formula Fords in Australia in 1996 and 1997, I spent three years in Europe in Fords and Formula 3, winning the 1999 European Formula Ford championship.   Then it was back to Australia where the V8 Supercars relaunched my career. In a Stone Brothers Racing Ford Falcon I won championships in 2003\u20132004 and had a lot of fun. But I viewed myself as an international driver who wanted to make it on the world stage, and the 2009 Sprint Cup season has been the best of my racing career.   I came to America to experience NASCAR and didn&amp;#039;t really believe I would get to the Cup level. I came in from the bottom, not expecting any breaks, but to work my way through the categories step by step. Thankfully, I found Tad Geschickter and the JTG Daugherty race team who looked after me the whole time...one year in trucks, two in Nationwide, now the Sprint Cup. It&amp;#039;s been a great journey.   In my opinion, NASCAR is the best, bigger than Formula 1. The competition is fierce and the depth of talent is very high, with F1, Champ Car and NASCAR veterans all in the mix.   I&amp;#039;ve driven a lot of different race cars around the world, high downforce, low downforce, in the rain, on dirt...you name it. But high-speed stock-car racing is one of the toughest things you could do. I particularly enjoy the road races, which take me back to my old style of racing. [Ambrose finished 3rd at Infineon and 2nd at Watkins Glen in the Sprint Cup, and won the Nationwide race at the Glen.\u2014Ed.] These Cup cars have nowhere near enough downforce, way too much power and not enough tire grip.   Everything is maxed out. You need a lot of aggression to really get one around the racetrack.   There&amp;#039;s no easy weekend and there&amp;#039;s nowhere to hide out on a big speedway. Every weekend you&amp;#039;ve got to run on the edge. If the car is comfortable, you&amp;#039;re too slow. It&amp;#039;s possibly the only motorsport left in the world where drivers make a big difference, because the cars just don&amp;#039;t handle. And these guys are unbelievable drivers, willing to run on the edge with a rear end wagging around at 210 mph and still be aggressive.   There&amp;#039;s so much going on. The wind knocks you around in the draft, people bumping you and cars slipping around. You want to lift at every corner, but you know you have to stay in it. You&amp;#039;ve got to commit to yourself, to the car and to what you&amp;#039;re doing. You&amp;#039;ve really got to believe because any doubt in your mind and another driver is going to pounce. There&amp;#039;s no room out there for the weak of mind or the timid.   Beyond racing, I have two girls, 2 and 4 years old, and my wife, who are living in Charlotte, North Carolina. It&amp;#039;s a great life, but at the same time I have to keep a balance so I try to get them to Australia four months of the year so they can see their family. I know racing isn&amp;#039;t going to last forever and I have a responsibility to give them a good balanced upbringing.   As for the U.S., I enjoy the West Coast because it&amp;#039;s close to Australia, less distance to travel. I love the mountains, so Colorado and anything west of that I find awesome. I also find the East Coast incredible because I come from one of the driest places in the world, so I&amp;#039;m lucky to be living in a place with lakes, rivers and beautiful forests. It&amp;#039;s a great country, and so are the people, who are very welcoming.   It&amp;#039;s been a great experience. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a15227/marcos-ambrose/>