By Matt Crossman
(Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service) - You know the feeling. You’re sitting in your car. You crank the engine.

Nothing.

You cuss.

You crank the engine again.

Nothing.

Cuss some more.

One more try.

Nothing.

Epic cuss.

Now, imagine all of that … plus it is the 104th lap of a 110-lap race at Infineon Raceway, and you are running away with your first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win, blowing the doors off of all the hotshot, left-turn only stars of NASCAR.


Marcos Ambrose, driver of the No. 9 Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports, knows what that’s like … and he’d really rather not talk about it.


Good luck with that.


As the circuit returns this weekend to Infineon Raceway for the first time, Ambrose was on NASCAR’s race preview conference call, and everyone wanted the driver from Down Under to relive his epic blunder.


The moderator asked about it, the third reporter asked “about the terror that must have been going through your mind,” the seventh reporter asked if Ambrose’s fellow Australians asked about it, another asked if he’ll ever get over it, and another tried the indirect route, asking vaguely about strange things Ambrose has seen happen in road-course races, which is like asking Kyle Busch if he has ever heard a driver booed.


For the record, here’s what happened: Ambrose shut his engine off to try to save gas—a common practice—but when he tried to start it again, it wouldn’t fire. NASCAR rules say that even under caution, a driver must maintain a certain speed, and he didn’t. With his car not running, one car after another crept past him. He fell all the way to seventh. He lost all of that track position, and eventually, the race. Jimmie Johnson inherited the lead and drove on for his first career win on a road course.


Ambrose tried to stall (see what I did there?) the questions. “I don’t need to go back on what happened last year,” he said. “It is what it is. I couldn’t get the motor refired for whatever reason. This year, I’ve got a brand new team, brand new crew chief, brand new sponsor, and a brand new carburetor, so I should have no more issues.”


That carburetor crack was the closest thing Ambrose did to injecting (see what I did that time?) any humor into the situation, which was surprising considering he normally wears a smile as broad as a bumper and as wide as NASCAR’s interpretations of its rulebook. On the other hand, winning races for small teams is the key to becoming a big team, so coming close certainly hurt.


“I felt bad for a little bit,” Johnson said, a statement you are free to believe if you’d like. “I was shocked to see his car shut off and not re-fire. I didn’t really understand what was going on.”


Neither did anybody else, least of all Ambrose, who appeared to not know or understand he had to keep his pace. “I’ve lost no sleep on it,” Ambrose said, a statement you are free to believe if you’d like. “Racing’s all about split-second decisions and choices you make. I’m just looking forward to a fresh chance to go to Sonoma and win.”


No doubt, he has a great chance. Ambrose was leading the race late last year for a reason—and that reason is he’s one of the best road-course racers in the sport. More than almost anybody else, he has mastered the subtle dance of braking, turning, shifting and accelerating.


His sponsor, Stanley tools, will donate $1 million to the Children’s Miracle Network if he wins the race … and $100,000 if he finishes last. But he’s not thinking about finishing last. He’s thinking about winning, driving away from that nasty memory, and the victory lane celebration that will follow. It’ll be a gas.