NASCAR: Top-Five Drivers To Never Make The Chase

No. 3 – Marcos Ambrose

Marcos Ambrose’s career in NASCAR may be over but not before he made our list at No. 3. Ambrose’s Cup career started with the Wood Brothers Racing team and immediately off the bat showed promise. He finished an impressive third at Watkins Glen in 2008 and was tabbed to drive the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing car as the team made their way to the Cup Series in 2009.

Ambrose drove with the team with an alliance with MWR and finished an impressive 18th in the point standings in his first full year in the Cup Series including a runner-up finish to Tony Stewart at Watkins Glen.

In 2010 the team struggled finishing a dismal 26th in the point standings. The 2010 season was also shadowed by a devastating moment in which Ambrose was attempting to save fuel at while leading in the closing stages of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 and Ambrose’s car shut off losing the lead. He would go on to finish sixth that day after leading 35 laps, however the devestation was something the team was never able to recover from.

From there Ambrose moved on the newly formed Richard Petty Motorsports to drive the No. 9 Ford with Stanley Tools as sponsor. Ambrose and crew chief Todd Parrott rolled off 12 top-1o finishes that season including his first career win at Watkins Glen in August. He and Parrott would be paired together for the start of the 2012 season and again would win at Watkins Glen. He finished 19th in the points in 2012 but after Richmond Parrott was moved to the No. 43 team and driver Aric Almirola a move that Ambrose never seemed to recover from.

He would go on and drive the No. 9 car for two more seasons finishing 22nd and 23rd in the point standings. After the 2014 season Ambrose left to pursue a Sports car career with Roger Penske. However, that didn’t seem to work out quite right.

His two wins on the road course tracks helped him crack our list.

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