Marcos Ambrose To Miss Watkins Glen NASCAR Nationwide Race Despite Three Straight Wins

Marcos Ambrose has three straight NASCAR Nationwide Series victories at Watkins Glen and would figure to be the heavy favorite for Saturday’s race.

But there’s one problem: Ambrose won’t be there. Instead, he plans go fishing – far away from the track – and pretend the race isn’t happening.

Ambrose was unable to put a deal together with Richard Petty Motorsports to run the race, and though he had opportunities to drive another car, he said he wanted to do it the “right way” and stick with his team.

Unfortunately for Ambrose, it didn’t happen.

“I don’t really want to be here on Saturday to watch someone else win my race,” he said. “I’m very disappointed I didn’t get a chance to do it. I think it’s a combination of the economy and just bad timing. I had opportunities to do it and we worked hard with RPM to put a team together and put sponsorship together, and it just didn’t work out.”

Ambrose is using the Sprint Cup race to console himself. He has yet to win his first career Cup race, and said “at the end of the day, the Cup race is what really pays and keeps us all going.”

Certainly, Ambrose is the favorite for Sunday’s race (he has three top-three finishes at the Glen in three Cup starts). But he would have been the favorite on Saturday, too.

“We’ll try to forget about watching the Nationwide race,” he said. “Whoever wins, I congratulate them. But I want to be a long way from the track. It’s a race I wanted to do and certainly had another chance to win.”