High Sierra Photo

Marcos Ambrose has a multitude of fans in his home country that follows his stateside racing via newspapers aptly serviced by the driver's PR apparatus.

The bad news, however, is that SPEED's telecasts aren't carried in Australia. And since the nation is on the south side of the equator, there's no way even to "bootleg" a broadcast off the satellite.

Ambrose's third-place finish was the first top-five logged by a member of the huge, 18-driver Raybestos Rookie of the Year contingent. Erik Darnell, the point leader, posted the previous best, sixth, in season opener at Daytona.

Darnell has a new rival in the rookie of the year race following the Kansas round. Chad McCumbee, with a 13th-place finish, supplanted Aric Almirola as the runnerup. McCumbee, 21, is 11 points behind Roush Racing's "Driver X" with two races remaining before many of the drivers begin the process of tossing "worst finishes" to reach the 14 race maximum on which scoring is based.

Gaughan's fourth-place effort marked the Las Vegan's first top-five since running third at Memphis Motorsports Park last July. Dodge now has two top fives over the last three races after being blanked through the first nine events.

"I just drove my tail off and found the old groove. It was awesome to be able to run good again," said Gaughan, who indeed resembled the driver who came within a few laps of winning the 2003 championship.

Gaughan is set to make his 100th career start on Saturday at Kentucky Speedway. He becomes the 22nd different driver to reach the century mark.

Cook's win snapped a 94-race winless streak that ranked second longest among active race winners and third in series history. Butch Miller has gone 104 races since his only series victory in July 1995 at Colorado National Speedway.

The longest stretch between victories belongs to Rick Crawford, who started 120 times between win No. 1 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on April 4, 1998. His second victory also came in the state of Florida - at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 15, 2003.

Cook is the 28th different winner in 56 races on 1.5-mile tracks. Four of his six wins have come on tracks of one mile or longer. His previous longest track victory was in 2002 at the 1.25-mile Gateway International Raceway.

Skinner stands alone at the top of the career pole chart after notching No. 28 during Friday's qualifying. He had shared the record with Jack Sprague. Skinner counts three poles in his last four starts and leads the circuit with four fast qualifying performances in 2006.

Twenty eight different drivers have led laps during the season's first 12 races. Added to the list at Kansas Speedway were Ambrose, Kyle Krisiloff and Kelly Sutton.

Three drivers in addition to Ambrose recorded best career finishes on Saturday. David Ragan, sixth, improved on his previous eighth place. Erin Crocker was 16th (18th) and Justin Allgaier 21st (22nd).

Is Ted Musgrave the latest to battle post-championship jinx?

Musgrave averaged a finish of 3.0 during the season's first six races during which he placed fourth or better in each. He's been better than 16th just once his past six appearances - seventh at Texas - with a finishing average of 23.0 in the last three starts.

No champion has defended a title from 1996 through last season.

Musgrave remains fourth in the championship standings but has fallen 252 points behind teammate and leader Bodine.