Chase Still Within Reach
Brian Vickers pumped some life back into his postseason chances, finishing seventh in Sunday’s 3M Performance 400 at Michigan.
Three races remain before the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins Sept. 14 at New Hampshire, and Brian and the No. 83 team have a 166-point mountain to climb to reach the top 12. The sixth top-10 finish of the season moved him from 17th to 15th in the driver standings.
“It was a good points day,” said Brian, who chipped off a 44-point chunk on the Chase. “That’s one thing that we can walk away being happy about.”
The No. 83 Red Bull Toyota earned the team’s first pole in its two-year existence and led twice for 21 laps. Brian ran in the top five for the first two-thirds of the 400-mile race, but the car couldn’t quite keep up with changing track conditions despite a late two-tire stop.
“We felt like we had a car capable of winning,” Brian said. “We chased the track a little bit. I think everybody did. We didn’t chase it fast enough. The track continued to get looser and looser, and we didn’t keep up with it quite as fast as we needed to.”
Teammate AJ Allmendinger, who started 33rd, was forced to pit on lap 24 to repair minor cosmetic damage on the right-front fender. He fell a lap down and spent the rest of the day trying to get it back before finishing 28th.
AJ’s No. 84 Red Bull Toyota sits 36th in the car owner standings — 13 points out of the top 35 entering Bristol, where AJ made his first Sprint Cup start in March 2007.
posted by Bull Rider at 5:46 PM
8 Comments:
Solid day, just didn't keep up with the track.
Good momentum heading to Bristol
We will get them next week AJ!!
Does anyone know about the power issue we were having today?
Also, does anyone know who owned the TRB complex in Charlotte before TRB? Or did TRB build it?
BV had a problem with the primary ignition box.
The Red Bull Racing Team shop used to be Roger Penski's previous shop. Penski built a bigger complex because he was expanding to a 3-car team and sold the old shop to Red Bull.
Yes, hope is still alive...but BV needs to be Top 10 - at the worst - and will need help from some other teams in order to get in. I hope Good Luck follows BV and AJ at Bristol. Go get 'em boys!
Hopefully we will get a good points day for both of them at Bristol. I felt bad for AJ. He just struggled with his car all afternoon.
Me too - that car was a handful for him all day long. He said the same thing during the race the BV said in his post race interview - "the track is getting looser and we are not keeping up with it". Sounds like they were having the same issues. BV was lucky to be fighting from up front and AJs car was soo bad he couldnt fight to get up there. Bring on Bristol!!
At this point, I don't believe we can race our way in. But, if the other guys keep having trouble, and we keep running modestly, it's extremely doable. We need to be around 50 points out going into Richmond.
Even if we don't get in, this is still an amazing year.
Oh, and thanks to Curt for the information on the shop. I always love to know the history of the shops. I'm thinking of going to the TRB shop someday.
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