Was the result of rookie of the year in the Busch series a foregone conclusion when the season kicked off at Daytona last month?

Montoya brings a rather impressive CV to the table; 1999 Champ Car Champion, 2000 Indy 500 winner and 7 times a winner in Formula 1....but does that mean anything now he's racing tintops?

You bet it does; pressure

He's a household name due to his wheel####ing exploits against Michael Schumacher....in other words, Montoya won't back down from a fight. We saw that at Mexico last week when he won....but spun his teammate in the process. Reckless? Not really....just inexperienced I'd say. He's used to cars stopping on a dime which his Dodge Charger just can't do. He'd pulled a similar move earlier in the race too so that probably affected his choice to whether or not to have a go.

The question is this; should he have waited? Possibly, but this is a guy that everyone has been talking up since he announced his move mid-last year....he did what he thought was right, so how can you penalise him for that? You can't....just know that he'll be a bit more cautious next time as he now knows what the car is capable of when he stamps that left foot on the anchors.

But back to the topic....who can stop him from being the top rookie in the Busch series?

Two words; Marcos Ambrose

The 'devil racer' is in his second year of oval racing having spent last year in the Craftsman Truck series. He was the first '06 rookie to claim a pole position, first one to net a podium finish and the only rookie to win the lap leader award....not bad for a guy who's never raced on ovals before.

While the focus was on Montoya and Hornish Jr in Daytona as both ended the day early, Ambrose stayed out of trouble and ended up finishing on the lead lap in 16th....on his first visit to Daytona I might add since he wasn't cleared to race there in the trucks last year.

California could have gone better for Marcos had he not binned it during qualifying forcing him to the backup car for the race....but he still drove the wheels off it and finished on the lead lap (again) just outside the top 20.

Then we headed to Mexico....ahh yes, Montoya dominated the weekend (as most people thought he might) and drove wonderfully well after a miscue in the pits dropped him way down the field. However, Ambrose, too, had his own troubles, getting spun while in the top 10 before storming back to finish 8th (and showing people how to drive on a road course....passing 7 cars on the final two laps!)

And now Las Vegas is over for the Busch guys and let's think about that; Vegas got reconfigured last year so it was a bit oif an unknown quantity when they rolled out on the track for the first time so everyone was on a level playing field.

This could have been Juan's best chance at winning a (oval) Busch race due to that....but he couldn't find the handling on his car for qualifying and he hit more trouble during the race as he dropped a couple laps early and never really recovered (finishing 20th but 4 laps down). Ambrose however had a strong weekend, qualifying on the 7th row, bringing it home in 10th and becoming the first Australian to ever lead a lap in the Busch series (I'll bet most people...me included...thought his best shot at doing that was on a road course).

So where does that leave us? Montoya might want to have a look over his shoulder....Ambrose has every intention on blowing right by him and turning the atlas upsidedown in the process.