“Supercars” is a big Australian race series. When they call someone a “legend,” it means they were really successful and well known in that racing world.
A test day is practice time on the track. You’re not racing for points—you’re learning the course and getting the car (or kart) set up so you can drive better.
A go-kart is usually where racers start. It’s a small race car that helps you learn how to drive fast, brake, and take corners—often through a local kart club.
A kart club is an organized local group that runs karting events and provides access to tracks, schedules, and rules. For young drivers, clubs are often where you find coaching, practice days, and entry-level competition.
In motorsport, “sims” usually refers to racing simulators—software plus hardware that lets drivers practice virtually. They’re used to keep skills sharp when real-world racing is limited.
Term
VR
VR is a headset that makes the simulator feel more real. Instead of just watching a screen, it feels like you’re sitting in the car.
A hauler is the trailer/transport vehicle used to move a race car to and from events. Motorsport teams rely on haulers to protect the car and keep logistics organized.
Formula Ford is a stepping-stone type of race series. It’s usually lighter and less powerful, so you learn how to drive well rather than just rely on raw engine power.
The throttle is the pedal that tells the engine how much power to make. In racing, if you press it too hard at the wrong time, the rear tires can lose grip and the car can spin.
Rear-wheel drive means the engine sends power to the back wheels. That can make the car feel different when you accelerate out of a turn—sometimes the back end wants to slide more.
In motorsport, logistics covers the practical planning needed to get people and equipment to events on time. That includes travel schedules, accommodations, and coordinating the timing around race weekends and time zones.
This is about helping more women get involved in racing. It can include training programs, support from teams, and opportunities that help women move up in motorsport.
“On track” refers to driving or racing on a dedicated circuit rather than public roads. Track driving emphasizes consistent technique—lines, braking points, and throttle control—because there’s less margin for error.
A racetrack is where racing happens. It’s a special track built for cars to drive fast and compete safely, and people often spend the day watching or helping around the event.
Repco is an Australian car-parts company that also supports racing. Here, they’re basically helping create a fun, sponsored experience around the event.
A Volkswagen Bus is a small van made to carry people. It’s shaped like a box and is often used for trips or transporting a group. The podcast mention likely refers to it as a “little bus” version of Volkswagen’s small vehicles.
“Activation” is marketing that happens at the event—like fun stuff a sponsor sets up to get fans involved. It’s more than just an ad; it’s an experience.
A green screen is a filming trick where the background is replaced later with computer-made scenery. It helps productions show places or effects that would be hard or expensive to build for real.
GT4 is a type of race series for sports cars. The cars are based on models you could buy, but they’re set up for racing under rules meant to keep things affordable.
The 500cc Grand Prix refers to the premier motorcycle racing class historically run with 500 cubic centimeter engines. It’s a major part of Grand Prix motorcycle history and is associated with top-level riders and high-risk racing.
LIVE
Welcome to the Motorsport Brief, a generational racer carrying a famous surname but making
her own mark.
Hi everybody, Rusty with you here at our Melbourne garage studios with Tabitha Ambrose, daughter
of Marcus Ambrose, supercars legend and former NASCAR race winner.
Shortly we'll talk about the road that she's walking, coming to grips with the business
side of the sport and how the energiser bunny, as some have called him, helps when he steps
back too, plus watching as Marcus battled cancer so bravely and being there as he shared
that story for the first time last October.
There is a fabulous 90 minute chat with Marcus that you can actually find in our garage library
recorded back in 2019 and that is one of the first in-depth pod chats that he ever had.
Talking about his time in NASCAR, his junior days in Europe conquering V8 supercars as
we used to call it and it's challenging moments too on both sides of his US chapter.
With about the six hour just around the corner we thought we'd introduce you to Tabitha.
This is a really nice engaging conversation with a young, switched on racer who is acutely
aware of the weight of the surname but immensely proud to be continuing the family's Motorsport
story.
I hope you enjoy the chat.
Hello you.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm good.
Thank you.
This is crazy for me because I can remember you and your sister and the news of your arrival
into the world if you will and crazily the rust daughters are a very similar age to you
and your sister.
So to think that we're sitting here now having a podcast chat I think is remarkable.
The fact that you are on your own Motorsport journey I love.
Clearly dad is of inspiration to you but what was the first thing that you can maybe
remember that you were drawn to it?
What was it?
Well I've spent my whole life around racing.
Obviously dad raced in America and so we spend every weekend at the track with him and so
I've been around the racing, what do you call it?
It's like family.
Family.
Yeah I like the word for it.
The racing family all my life and then dad said let's give it a go.
Let's put you in a little pink go kart and so there we went, did a test day in a little
pink go kart.
Mega this is in America.
No in Australia.
Yeah no so and then once we come back to Australia everything kind of settled down for dad.
He did less racing himself and then he focused on other projects and so and then he was like
well you know do you want to have a go in a little pink go kart I think it'll be fun.
So we borrowed one of our friends little pink go karts and.
In Tassie?
In Tassie.
In Tassie.
Kart club.
Club yeah.
Which is really cool and then yeah and then it all just kind of spiraled from there and
then COVID really kind of messed us up just with the whole trajectory of everything obviously
you're locked down, can't do much racing.
Dad started building sims and so if I wasn't in the go kart I was on the sim, he had a motion
sim which was really cool so the VR, the motion sim and yeah I just started loving it.
He and I might have had quite a few gin and tonics one night and he showed me that sim
which was remarkable and at that stage the whole advent of sims was sort of on this huge
growth but I love how he is, he's always thinking about stuff like that isn't he about what
he could do, how he could do it and so on.
You've missed a little element of the story and I wouldn't mind bringing it out if that's
okay.
Brett Murray who's here in the studio with us reminded me today he's been around motor
racing, public relations, speak FA you know but for many many years and he reminded me
of this beautiful picture, I want to say of you at school, Dad brought the NASCAR, you
must have been at school in Charlotte I think were you and he brought the race car to school,
that was quite a big day wasn't it?
Oh absolutely, I mean it was the best bring your dad to school day I think, I can't quite
remember it but I think they had this like profession program and you know parents came
in, talked about one was a firefighter, maybe a police officer and they came in gave a little
chat and then Dad was like oh yeah I'm coming to school today and I was like oh cool and
then all of a sudden they wheel out, they bring out the hauler and they have the NASCAR
come out and then Dad's in his race suit and all the kids are kind of getting around it
because there's such a big culture around NASCAR in America, it's huge so it was a really
awesome day and then Dad was like oh well you know we don't have time for everyone to
sit in the NASCAR so I got to sit in the NASCAR so that was really cool and it ended up being
the same car as I just raced at Adelaide Motorsport Festival so it was a big full circle
moment for us as a family, it was really really cool.
Can we go there, I mean you know podcasts and sometimes I do things in a timeline right
but we don't have to here so let's go there because you got to test it I think in the
lead up, there are a couple of little lessons around that for you too weren't there about
I mean it's such a massive amount, more horsepower, 700 plus horsepower compared to the formula
for what the heck was that thing like.
It was just insane when they, so Repco reached out to us initially and just said hey you
know we've got this idea, the car owner Jared he was you know really keen to get the car
back out for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival and they wanted both Dad and I but I don't
think Dad was quite ready to step back into a race car just yet so they said oh well Tabitha
would you be interested in it and so Dad and I we kind of looked at each other and we're
like am I actually ready for this, can I actually step into this NASCAR and be ready and be
comfortable and so we thought well we might just do a test day at QR and see how that
goes won't lock ourselves into anything because if it's not right then we won't do it, don't
want to really put myself in a situation, put Jared the car owner in that situation
to like step out in Adelaide and just not be ready, it's not a great look like you want
to go out there and you just want to be professional and you want to be ready for it, do it properly
exactly so no the test day at QR went really really well.
How are you opening?
I know it was very eye opening and I said to Dad, the first thing I said to Dad was
gee I just got down the straight so fast, I wanted to know I was like on the corner
exit and then I was into turn one and it was just so quick but I think the Formula Ford
has taught me a lot because it is such a light, I know it doesn't have the horsepower behind
it but because it's such a light car it kind of gives the effect of having a lot of power
under your foot if that makes sense because in a relative sense because you can't just
put the throttle on otherwise you know you'll lose the rear so just it has kind of the same
quirks as maybe as you would when you hop into a higher horsepower car because like
when you put the throttle on the NASCAR like that thing goes so no it was good, the Formula
Ford got me ready for it but the amount of horsepower I don't think anything can really
prepare you for that.
The Formula Ford is something that both of you, both you and your Dad are very passionate
about and there's a lot of great history in this country so many good people have come
through it, most of the good people say you really need to go and do that along the way
and you've been kind of steadfast in that approach haven't you?
Yeah absolutely, we've got Family Heritage with the Formula Ford, Poppy Ross Ambrose
he you know he kind of started the whole Formula Ford thing for the family with Ben Demon
and his roots with Formula Ford and then Dad raced Formula Ford in Australia and in Europe
and he's quite passionate about it and then we kind of hopped out of the excels looked
around and said what's next, what am I going to do?
We couldn't race Formula Ford in Tasmania and that's kind of where I was at the time
when I started my racing journey and it was just too hard to race Formula Ford over in
we call it the mainland because the little Tasmanians that's just the mainland so yeah
so we kind of hopped out of the excels and were like well what's next and so for me it
was Formula Ford just learning the craft, rear wheel drive, a lot different to the
exel, front wheel drive, big heavy car, less horsepower than the Formula Ford so it was
a really good stepping stone and I've just had a lot of fun in it, this is my second
year in the Formula Ford, I learnt heaps the first year, in the second year I just want
to kind of cement everything that I've learnt and go out there and just go out there and
just kill it basically.
You are doing that with a nice tip of the hat to the colour scheme that Dad ran in that
iconic period in Supercars, I can remember the release coming out in February last year
and it immediately transported you back 20 or so years and then even this year I think
with the subtle flu road touches that's very reminiscent of O4 I think isn't it, so O4
O5.
Yeah yeah yeah, no I'm so grateful to have Protek back on board this year, I mean it's
so cool with the family heritage and they're really big on passing down so a lot of the
franchisees have now had kids and they're growing up and now they're passing on their
franchise and maybe their children and so it's really cool because Dad and I we can
kind of represent that as like the passing down.
Down, yeah yeah yeah.
Have you learnt from, I mean this is a business, at the end of the day it's something that
you want to pursue and I'm pursuing very passionately but I mean it's from all the back end stuff
that you need to do, how big has the learning curve on that side been, learning to deal
with corporates, you're in a podcast scenario today, you might have been at Mount Panorama
Bathurst with Repco and doing some talks and so on and fun bits of content for people,
I mean that is a massive, how big is that learning thing?
Oh it's been huge and I'm very grateful I've got Brett in my corner too so he's been teaching
me, I've been learning the ropes but yeah it's, driving's almost 10% of it, I know
there's a lot within the driving but you've also got to represent yourself and you're
representing brands like representing Protek, representing Repco and so you've got to learn
when to bite your tongue, you've got to learn and you've got to learn how to speak in front
of people, that was something that I was not so good at, I found that I talk a million
miles an hour, I can't quite get the words out that I want to say and so just being
able to learn how to represent myself and represent a brand and talk to people I think
has been huge.
Your dad can obviously bring a lot of learnings from his time in all of that right, I mean
the amazing things that he did in his career but you're also in a different generation
so I love the fact that you listen right, that's very clear that whether it's around
the team of people that you're with, you mentioned Crush there a moment ago but what's
it like with Dad because you carry the surname and that is both blessing but also spotlight
at a very early phase of your career that other competitors would not necessarily have.
No absolutely, having Dad in my corner has been great, I mean we're both team Ambrose,
for him he's got his reputation, like he's Marcus Ambrose, he's this supercar champion,
went over to NASCAR and he represents Marcus Ambrose and so he also represents the Ambrose
name and so just step into it as well, I've got to now represent the Ambrose name and
so that holds a little bit of weight for me because I don't obviously want to do anything
to...
You want to build on that, don't you?
Yeah, I want to build on the Ambrose name, I don't want to just cut it down so just being
able to represent myself on social media too I think is so important as well.
Is Dad helpful with that or not really?
No, oh my goodness, no, he is not, and I'm outing him on the podcast right now but the
Marcus Ambrose motorsport that's probably, well you can tell when Dad makes a post on
Marcus Ambrose motorsport because it is so authentically him.
It's like he's talking, isn't it?
Exactly, so I think 80% of the time it's me and so I've learnt how to write up a little
Instagram post or something, trying to update people, not necessarily give a race report
because I, you know, with all the stats and everything because I think a lot of people
just like to know about the journey and also the behind the scenes stuff to actually get
out on the track.
We ran the little race team last year and so I learnt a lot about what actually goes
into running a race team.
You know, kind of coordination and business sense and everything else.
That's a lot, right?
Yeah, so logistics, so I ended up being in charge of the logistics, so booking the accommodation,
changing accommodation, like invoices, travel flights, that was a big one, learnt a lot
at Darwin with the time zones and also like AM flights and PM flights, we ended up booking
like an AM flight for the next day because we got all confused about which day we were
trying to fly out so.
But otherwise, it's been a really great journey and so to learn from the different sides of,
you know, the representing Ambrose and then also being a part of a team, helping a team
own on because Dad was a team owner last year and then also being a race car driver.
Like I feel like I've got all these little hats that I've put on throughout my very
short career in motorsport.
And you are, I think as you said before, you are telling your own story and writing your
own pages in that, right?
We're still very early in that story.
A couple of things that stand out here for me, the six hour, you're going to do that
again and we're going to release this pod in the run up to that class victory there
last year.
I mean, that was that was really cool.
Wasn't it?
Oh, no, it was so cool.
And to do it with two other girls by my side as well, Carly and Courtney, it was a lot
of fun.
I've never been in an all girls setting before like all my peers have been have been guys
and that's just what I'm used to.
And so to step in the car with them in this little girl driver team that we've got is
not an all girls team.
It's just like the three, three go in the front line, the front line.
Little birdie tells me you cheekily said to dad, I'm the first Ambrose to walk away
with the Bathurst trophy.
Is this true?
It is.
It is true.
It is.
I think that was the first thing that coach said to me after we won that.
Make sure you tell him that.
He knows.
Don't worry.
He knows.
I'm sure he does.
The great initiatives and there are many of them around women in motorsport are something
that you are very giving and happy to be a part of, but I sense in you too, you are
racer.
This is your own story.
So it is a collective of all of those things, isn't it?
But in the same breath, whether it's the business side, the driving side, whatever, is that
where you're at?
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's where I'm at.
I'm just another competitor.
I'm just another person in motorsport trying to make it.
I think to an extent we've all got an equal playing field, whether you're like a team
owner or a mechanic in the workshop or a driver, I think that everyone's got there.
There's just so many different pathways in motorsport now and I love the initiative
that they've got with the girls on track.
I think that's awesome in bringing more women and just teaching them that this is your space
too, because it is.
It's everyone's space.
And it's good for our game, the inclusivity.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I just think it's anyone's space.
It's anyone's game at the end of the day.
A little breather on this edition of the Motorsport Brief, more with Tabitha Ambrose in just a
few moments.
For this episode of the Rusty's Garage Shortcast, we've focused on a young racer's story so
far, helping you to get to know Tabitha Ambrose a little better as she forges her own path,
all while proudly carrying a famous surname and the kind of added attention that goes
with that.
Let's get back to the Convo now.
From a storytelling point of view, where do you want this to go?
And you alluded to it, I think, a little bit around COVID and stuff, that you had a plan
here, didn't you?
There has been, I don't know how cemented and solid that was.
Maybe it was a loose plan, but there was an idea of where you wanted to go with this,
wasn't there?
Absolutely.
I mean, Dad sat me down pretty early on and said, we're not going to go up to Europe.
That's not what's going to happen.
We're going to be very realistic about it, and so that's the approach that we've had
throughout, even in the go-karting.
We've just kind of taken it one year at a time, one step at a time, and just looking
at, okay, we've kind of wrapped that up.
What's next?
And I want it to take me as far as I can handle it.
And so maybe three years down the line, if it's not fun, then we're not going to do
it.
That crushes what we're going to say over our shoulder.
That's his kind of mantra, isn't it?
It's got to be fun.
It's got to be fun, and I've got to be capable.
I'm not there just to participate.
I want to be in the front, I want to be fighting for a title, I want to be fighting for it.
So in a couple of years, if I step sideways or I try and make it, it doesn't quite work.
There's always going to be a spot for me in motorsport somewhere along the line, might
be in a team, working with the logistics as I learned last year, or it might even be something
a little bit more exciting, like being on TV or trying to be in the social media side
of things.
So I know that if I don't make it as a driver, I'm going to sidestep and hopefully try and
build a career in motorsport otherwise.
There are alternate possibilities, but there is like a zero focus thing on driving, right?
Yes, all the other business learnings are mounted, but a zero focus on the driving.
My buddy Lee Diffie, who you know, the former IndyCar caller and now calling NASCAR and
stuff, he's got this great line, a very appropriate line about a calling card.
As you take those next steps on the ladder, you need a calling card to be able to say,
hey, I'm the, you know, whatever, my CV shows that I've won the Formula 4 championship and
so on.
So is that the kind of thing now we want to get a couple of those things on the ticked
list?
Absolutely.
I want to tick those things off.
We had a great first round at the bend, but eyes forward, I'm looking at the bigger picture.
You know, I do want to make it in the highest form of racing possible.
Like I'd love to race Supercar and I'd love to go to America and, you know, race NASCAR
and just build myself up, but I do have to be very realistic and, you know, take it one
year at a time.
Did you test a Trans Am true or false?
Have you driven one?
True.
True.
Can you tell me about that experience?
I can.
I did two sessions.
Nice.
In a Trans Am.
At Wynton?
At Wynton.
Bedding and breaks.
Did you?
Yeah.
And I kept running off the track because it's, you know, it's on the other side, like
you're driving on the other side and the car is so big too.
Yeah.
Like I came from a Formula Ford.
I know the NASCAR is big as well, but the Trans Am was just very wide and so I kept running
off the track and Dad's like, you got to keep it on the black stuff.
What are you doing?
And I'm like, I don't know.
It's a really difficult thing.
I'm speaking from a parent perspective now and I can only imagine what it is like for
Marcus, right?
Because at the end of the day, you want your son, your daughter to avoid pitfalls, things
that you might have done in your own life and you wish only the very best for them
success.
But at the end of the day, you have to walk your own road.
What is that conversation like for you guys around that stuff?
Because he's got this beautiful knowledge bank of things that you can draw from.
He's a great straight shooter, often in the way that he tells you things.
What's that like being around him for that stuff?
And we covered the fact before that you listen, which I think is terrific.
But sometimes in that generational thing, the age that you're at now, the natural reaction
for a lot of kids is to all their eyes and go, okay, Dad, you don't know social media
or you don't know blah, blah, blah.
But I feel like you have a beautiful relationship, you guys.
Even that massive road trip you did last year where you went Darwin and then back to Queensland
at whatever, there was some beautiful time on the road there with Dad, wasn't there?
Yeah, I've spent a lot of time with Dad over the past couple of years.
I'd like to say that it was a mix of both.
I'm like, yeah, right, okay, Dad.
And then sometimes I actually do listen and it's our biggest conversation at the dinner
table.
We talk about a dinner, we talk about it on the road, our lives are just motorsport.
That's all we talk about.
So and then we're on the sim and then when I'm not on the sim, he's on the sim.
And so it's really funny because we're constantly trying to beat each other's
lap times on the sim.
And so we do, we have this rivalry on the sim.
And then when we're at the dinner table, we're just constantly talking about it,
you know, about motorsport, different ideas and what he's doing.
And then about my racing as well and what we're going to do there.
And then when we're in the office, we're talking about motorsport.
So it is.
And we've got to try and find other things to talk about.
But because we're both so passionate about it and we both love it and in the industry.
It ends up being motorsport.
The balance might come a little bit from your beautiful mum,
who's been an amazing photographer over time, like Julia Ringel.
She's got a really good eye for it.
And your sister, I wouldn't say she's not into motor racing because she's
acutely aware of what you're doing and obviously what dad's done and so on.
And we've seen her at some big events and things along the way.
But I don't feel like necessarily that's the path she wants to get full on into
like you do. No, she she's actually started.
She's a dental assistant now. Fantastic.
I know. So she's gone into health care.
So at least one of us has, you know, gone on to do something to help.
Don't be harsh on yourself.
You're doing good things. I know, I know.
But no, she she enjoys motorsport.
She loves watching it, you know, and she gets involved in the dinner table conversation.
Same with mum.
Mum's been telling me how to drive and what I should do on track.
She's been getting very vocal.
Has she? Yeah, even on the even on the top of the
when we're watching like at the bend, I'll use the bend as an example.
She's been doing the catering. OK.
And so it is it's a family thing for us at the racetrack like
mum gets in and she does the catering and she helps out when she can.
And, you know, she's cooking up the sausages or whatever she's doing.
And then when the race is on, she goes up and she watches.
And apparently what I've heard, because obviously I'm in the car,
she can be very vocal up there, standing there and animated.
Very animated, very animated.
She gets very excited and she does.
She gets very animated. So it's it is really fun.
It's a family thing for us.
Adelaide isn't as involved in it anymore.
But she when she can and takes the time off work,
she she loves spending time at the track.
Awesome. You got to play fan bassader at Adelaide last year
with dad and dad had had success at that amazing event,
Grand Final for supercars and so on.
And you did you to we joke about it.
And there's a group of us that joke about him being the energiser bunny
because he's just all go to intense, whatever is one thing to the next and so on.
You got to do some cool stuff around that, didn't you?
But at the end of it, I think they tell me you jumped in a
and I was an Uber or whatever it was and you might have been leaving
and you had this beautiful, bright smile on your face around everything that you'd done.
And dad gently brought it back to the ground again.
Didn't you just like, like, hey, it's not always going to be like this?
I think somebody said what he said, yeah, he did he did ground me
and he does ground me a lot. Does he? He does.
But no, being fan bastard was awesome.
That was actually my first bathurst that I had been to the first bathurst
one thousand that I'd been to.
And so to be a fan bastard with my dad was really exciting.
Thanks to Repco.
I mean, we got to do so many cool stuff and also showtime.
So that's also touching on what we spoke about before with the learning
how to represent yourself.
That was the first time that I'd ever been on like a stage in front of an audience.
Well, they've got this little I forgot what they called it,
but it's like this little bus and the little truck and it's got the stage
and it's got the fireworks and everything and it's all big and loud music.
And the first time I got up there, they're like, now you have to dance.
And so it was the first time that I was on stage and then I had to dance
and then we had to speak and then we were throwing things out into the crowd.
We were at the top of the mountain.
I'd never been at the top of the mountain before and in with all the the fans,
camping and everything.
And so it was just so much fun and it was actually very eye opening for me
because it was just like, OK, this is, you know, the activation around that.
Repco had so much activation around that start around that amazing ad
that your dad and Murph did them and a bit of rivals back in the day.
Very funny ad, Jimmy Richards and everything went crazy.
I think you were on set for that.
Well, did you watch and maybe that's how it all kind of started?
You know, I got to I got to watch.
I got to meet the Repco family, which was awesome.
And it was it was a huge production.
Like I'd never really been a part of it.
I've never really seen a production or the making an ad.
And it was very eye opening when I got there and they had this massive green screen,
these floating trees that went around and then they had the bus
and they had all the they had all the actors.
And then they had they had Greg and they had dad.
And yeah, it was just it was very, very eye opening.
Well, I love that, though, because that shows you how big it can be, you know, huge.
Yeah. Awesome.
The end of last year, you and I got to attend a thing called the Pertick Legends night.
I got to work on that in an MC capacity.
I love that your dad was the guest of honour that night.
And he opened up on his battle with cancer.
I was like many in the room blown away by by that.
I think a handful of people probably knew the gravity of what he went through.
He's candid, very open way that he spoke about that.
I think it was so beneficial for so many people.
You saw that behind the scenes and that must have, I guess, been tougher times.
But maybe there's a little something in that that you saw in your dad
that's a great kind of life lesson.
I mean, he attacked that with just this relentless determination, didn't he?
What was that like? It was the fight for me.
It was, you know, the fight like he really he really he put on a fight
and he didn't he say face.
And it was that was what I looked up to the most.
I was like, yeah, that's that's how you do it.
That's how you go about it.
And it was awesome.
And it was such a great night to it was.
And so just to kind of finish off the chapter
and to end it in such a great night and, you know, and talk about it
and have crushed there was really good because you got to just control it.
Like in his own narrative, he didn't have someone, you know, talking for him.
And so it was really good for you to emcee it to and for crush to be there
and everything. And it was just it just went so smoothly.
And it couldn't have been done better by better people.
It was just it was the best.
Has it made you sort of think, got to maximise what I do here
and live life to the full kind of thing? That's a.
You know, sad, but good way.
A really, you know, life lesson here.
Isn't it? Yeah, no, absolutely.
You've got to you've got to fight for it.
And and that's what I've learnt.
Like you've got to fight for everything that you do and everything, you know,
you you back to you have to back yourself.
You have to fight for yourself too.
And so just just learning that and how strong a person can actually be.
Well done, you. This has been nice to chat with you today.
I see this part as just a little introduction to Tabitha Rambra as you have
so many more wonderful chapters to write.
I love the perspective that you have in this and that at such a young age,
what are you now? How old are you now? I'm 20, 20, crazy.
And like born the Gold Coast bulk of your life in the in the States.
And now here you are back where it began for your dad and carrying on that.
I mean, it's great that you brought up Poppy before to a third generation
in many respects. So we wish you luck with that.
And I can't wait to get you back in for a follow up pod at some stage
and talk about the next phases of what you've gone on to do.
Because I feel like you've got all of these great framework
ingredients around you to use and that you are using.
Grab them with both hands and go for it.
Yeah, absolutely.
I've just got to use all my resources around me and I've just got to go do it now.
So I think we're going to have a great year this year.
I'm really looking forward to it.
We're going to finish off the form the four things and then just reassess
and see where it all takes me. Go will.
Tabitha has a great outlook, doesn't she?
She's just so enthusiastic and I'm sure that there are moments for Marcus
where it is a little tricky, those things that parents go through,
where you have to let them process the stuff
that maybe they didn't get quite right along the way as kids,
while also trying to steer them as a parent in the right direction.
While we're on that, keep an eye out for the next edition of The Brief
with AFL legend Brad Johnson, how he navigates similar challenges
as his son, Jack, now pursues a career in motorsport
and how that elite sport experience that Brad has, good and bad,
can be a powerful tool with the big commitment that the family has made
to GT4 competition in Australia. We'll release that next week.
And our latest feature ep is with former 500cc Grand Prix
bike winner Kevin McGee, two parts there, an hour and a quarter of conversation
that includes memories of his victory at Harama in Spain
and some seriously frightening crashes in the US,
including one where some members of the Aussie media pronounced him dead,
plus how he helped a vision-impaired rider into the Guinness Book of Records.
That is it for this ep. We'll catch you next time, everybody. Bye for now.
About this episode
Tabitha Ambrose—daughter of supercars and NASCAR legend Marcus Ambrose—talks about building her own motorsport path while carrying the weight of a famous surname. She traces her start from go-karts to Formula Ford, including a test drive in a 700+ hp NASCAR ahead of the Adelaide Motorsport Festival. The conversation also covers the business side of racing, learning brand representation, running team logistics, and managing social media pressure. Tabitha reflects on family support, women-in-motorsport initiatives, and Marcus’s cancer battle and life lessons shared publicly at Pertick Legends Night.
Granddaughter of a pioneer, daughter of a legend in Marcos Ambrose….how Tabitha is forging her own path.
The racing bond with her Dad and why this relentless pursuit has to be fun, being the first in the family to pick up a trophy at Bathurst and how it all started.
When Dad showed up at school in the US with a very cool car, racing in Formula Ford and why it’s so important at this stage of her journey and the secret Trans Am test.
Plus the incredible inner strength she witnessed in her Dad’s serious but very private cancer battle and perhaps why it’s made her respect him even more.
Tabitha is a switched on racer who is fiercely determined to carve her own career in motorsport and is immersing herself in every aspect of the business.
The easy listening convo comes easily between these two. You’ll be impressed with the commitment and confidence for someone whose teenage year are barely in the rear view mirror. Enjoy!
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