That's usually how everything starts doesn't it? Dale Jr to HMS...Gibbs to use Toyotas...the old rumourmill has seen its fair share of stuff this year. Now there's another, and one with an international flavour;

Marcos Ambrose might be graduating to the Cup series in 2008.

Now, ordinarily, I don't bother clicking the 'NASCAR rumour' part on the main page of this site since I tend to prefer reading blogs instead (we get away with showing a bit more passion than proper writers after all)...but the headline in Ben Maller's section "Ford helping Ambrose prep for Cup" was a bit too intriguing for me to ignore.

Last week there was a similar article which didn't actually go anywhere so I thought it might have been the same this time...I was wrong. The Herald Sun say that "Marcos Ambrose will graduate to the multi-million-dollar NASCAR Nextel Cup racing next year" due to his strong position in the Busch standings (rookie season remember...made to look even better when you consider this is only his second year racing on ovals).

Call me a sadist, pessimist, whatever, but I don't think this will work. I'm the type of person who likes seeing someone earn their way into the elite...and yes, Marcos has worked his way from V8's here to Cup over there through the Truck and Busch series...but he's still inexperienced on ovals. Ok, so he's already over 30 years old (which is reasonably old to be considered a rookie I guess), but the fact is he's pretty much still a novice on the ovals...he'll be fine when they go to Infineon and Watkins Glen so I don't have any worries about those.

I am very much torn on this; I want it to be nothing more than a rumour and he stays in the Busch series for next year...but I would also love for it to be true.

We'll have to wait and see I guess...but most things do start with a rumour.