Marcos Ambrose has moved up to 16th in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings after finishing 23rd in the Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway in Tennessee today.

Ambrose qualified 15th in the #59 Kingsford Hickory Ford Fusion at the 1.33-mile speedway and finished three laps down in the midfield.

The Australian’s car was very tight throughout the race, making it a difficult day. Ambrose and his crew worked hard at getting a more balanced set-up throughout the race, but changes were not able to give the car a better set-up.

With an unusually low number of cautions in today’s race, opportunities for pit stops to tune the car were few, making it a tough day for Ambrose.

Scott Wimmer won today’s Pepsi 300 ahead of series leader Clint Bowyer and defending series champion Carl Edwards.

Ambrose and the JTG Racing team will enjoy a rare weekend off next weekend, before the NASCAR Nationwide Series gets back underway on April 5 with the O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Marcos Ambrose – #59 Kingsford Hickory Ford Fusion

“We’ve got two weeks now to have a think about things and make some progress,” said Ambrose.

“Today was not a great day for our team but the potential is certainly there. We’ve just got to put our heads down and work hard on finding more speed.

“We had a really, really tight race car and we just couldn’t get it good enough.

“The boys are all working hard. I’m very confident that we will be back up there very soon.”

RESULTS: Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway
Race 6 of 35 in the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series
1. #29 Scott Wimmer 225 laps
2. #2 Clint Bowyer
3. #60 Carl Edwards
4. #88 Brad Keselowski
5. #47 Kelly Bires
6. #64 David Stremme
7. #32 Denny Hamlin
8. #33 Cale Gale
9. #99 David Reutimann 224 laps
10. #25 Bobby Hamilton Jr
23. #59 Marcos Ambrose 222 laps

RESULTS: Qualifying
1. #20 Kyle Busch 29.310
2. #22 Mike Bliss 29.576
3. #66 Steve Wallace 29.596
4. #60 Carl Edwards 29.609
5. #47 Kelly Bires 29.620
6. #21 Stephen Leicht 29.623
7. #2 Clint Bowyer 29.628
8. #88 Brad Keselowski 29.663
9. #16 Colin Braun 29.670
10. #27 Brad Coleman 29.727
15. #59 Marcos Ambrose 29.866

2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series Standings – After Race 6 of 35
1. Clint Bowyer 877
2. Carl Edwards 866
3. David Reutimann 806
4. David Ragan 771
5. Mike Bliss 757
6. Brad Keselowski 756
7. Kevin Harvick 751
8. Kelly Bires 708
9. Mike Wallace 706
10. Jason Leffler 703
16. Marcos Ambrose 552