After a tough start in his first career appearance in NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup, Brian Vickers hoped a return to intermediate tracks would bring a change of luck.
But you’d expect he was looking for it to get better and not worse in Sunday’s Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway. Instead of turning things around, the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota driver got more of the same. After a weekend to forget in Kansas, Vickers now lies dead last in 12th in the Chase standings, 250 points behind leader Mark Martin.
“It’s not what we wanted, obviously. We were really looking to get to a mile-and-a-half and have a good run, but what do you do?” he said. “I just want to get out of Kansas to be honest with you. It’s been a long weekend for me.”
The Red Bull team arrived in the mid-west after finishing 11th in the first Chase race in New Hampshire and following that with an 18th in Dover. Although Vickers started 12th in Kansas, handling problems early in the race meant he simply could not find speed in the car. The Red Bull Toyota crew brought him into the pitlane early to make some chassis adjustments but it didn’t help much.
“I thought we had a good car today and we started out a little tight. It got worse and worse, and never could get a handle on it,” Vickers said.
'The engine blowing just put us out of our misery'
The troubles during the race continued the handling difficulties Vickers experienced in practice and qualifying where the strong mid-west winds gave him fits. The Kansas winds kept the drivers guessing with its sinister combination of high speed and sudden direction changes.
“The wind has no constant direction. If you know what constant direction it had, you could adjust for it,” he said. “When you have a headwind you have more down force. When you have a tailwind you have less down force.”
In the end, no force was available to help Vickers at the 1.5-mile, D-shaped oval. By the time the first 100 miles were in the books, Vickers was a lap down and struggling to stay in the top-30.
He got back onto the lead lap during a round of pitstops a few miles later, but that was pretty much the only good news on the day.
Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images
Then on Lap 126, Vickers was riding the high line at the top of the track when he lost the rear coming off Turn 4 and spun into the grass next to the pitlane, falling further down the field to 35th. “I was up on top of the track trying to chase grip and find some grip,” he said. “I got into the marbles and just lost it and that was completely my fault and I feel bad about it. I hate it for the guys.”
Things went from bad to worse when a misfire began about 50 laps later and Vickers radioed to his pit that he was worried about his motor just as leader Greg Biffle lapped him again to put him three down on the leaders.
The frustrating day ended after 208 laps when the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota went to the garage with a blown engine. He was classified 37th. “We just weren’t as good as whole as we needed to be today. We just absolutely weren’t,” he said. “The engine was the only thing that just put us out of our misery.”
Can the team rebound in the final seven Chase races? “Anything is possible, but obviously we are off to a slow start,” he said. “I don’t think we’re out of it yet, but it definitely doesn’t help. It hurts quite a bit.”
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