Going for a Saturday Drive
Brian Vickers returns to Braun Racing Toyotas for a limited Nationwide Series schedule this season, beginning with today’s Camping World 300 at Daytona.
In 12 starts last season, Vickers earned two poles, six top-five and eight top-10 finishes. In a Nationwide car at Daytona, the 2003 series champion has two top fives, including fourth in this race last season.
On Friday, Vickers qualified the No. 32 Toyota in the 27th position, but admitted the team focused on race mode rather than qualifying in practice.
“We were really happy with the car in race trim,” Vickers said, “and it handled really well. It seemed to draft well and suck up well, so we focused on that. It qualified as good or maybe better than we expected, and hopefully we’ll have what we need tomorrow.”
Vickers will drive a Braun car in the season’s first three events then return April 25 at Talladega. Teammate Scott Speed’s first Nationwide race comes Feb. 28 at Las Vegas in the No. 99 Red Bull Toyota with Michael Waltrip Racing.
Check out the Camping World 300 at 1:30 p.m. ET today.
On the Cup side: Speed’s No. 82 Red Bull Toyota returns to the track for the final practice before Sunday’s Daytona 500. Happy hour begins at 10:30 a.m. ET.
And on a side note …
One of the more popular pieces of reading material during Speedweeks is The Daytona Beach News-Journal, and Thursday’s special section focused on the history of car numbers since 1949.
According to the News-Journal, the No. 82 has raced 281 times with 44 different drivers and completed 40,461 miles. The No. 83 has raced 329 times with 52 drivers and completed 82,290.3 miles.
posted by Bull Rider at 7:38 AM
28 Comments:
Nice run for Brian, too bad no one would go with him on that move near the end. Excited for the 500!!!!!!
Awesome Nationwide race today for Vickers! Looking forward to seeing him run well again tomorrow.
Good luck to him and Scott Speed.
Brian Vickers and Scott Speed will run good for the Daytona 500. BV looks like he has a great chance to win the Daytona 500 and some are picking him to make a run at the championship...good luck BV and SS.
good luck to Brian Vickers and Scott Speed i know you can make get on the speed
Great 500 AJ, for all you Allmendinger fan's, we know your here.
This should pretty much lock up Valvoline and the 44 for the rest of the season.
Speed who?
Well that race was going good and we had a chance to get our lap back until we raced with Junior. I loved Junior's quote about not wanting to wreck the rest of the field, but not mentioning BV in the interview when he asked if he did it intentionally. Lets go get them at Cali!!
NASCAR should have parked Jr.
Why are the rules different for Jr.? Yesterday they gave a 5 lap penalty to the #38 for a far less offense. Jr. should have received the same thing or more. I can’t stand the double standard in NASCAR.
On another note…Thanks RBR for turning me on to my new favorite driver. AJ did great this week from the Bud Shootout, to the Duels to the 500! Congrats to Petty and AJ for their 3rd place finish!
Who is this Aj...and why are we talking about him here?
He's the only driver to have a win in a RedBull Car.
Quit living in the past dude, I am sure Petty has a message board where you can go talk about a 4th, part time team.
At least Dave Despain and DW agreed on Windtunnel, what Jr. did was a bonehead move of his making...I think the rest of the media thought BV blocked him so it was acceptable to knock him out of the way. All these mindless Jr. fans...don't know if I can stand another season.
You guys are so bent on thinking it had to be Earnhardt's fault, you can't think straight. Watch the footage, when Jr. tapped Vicker's rear, he then moved back up the track before he realized Vickers was spinning out and moved down low. My point? If he went up the track in the first place, do you really think he thought Vickers was going to be turned? No. And besides that, does Jr. have a history of spinning out people? No. But in all fairness, remember when Vickers picked up his first win and wrecked Jimmy and Jr.? Payback?
Don't get me wrong though, Red Bull is my favorite Toyota team, and I picked Vicker's for at least a top five finish. No doubt he'll make the chase this year!
Sorry Dave, I was at the race and from every viewpoint it was clearly Jr's mistake. He was having a BAD day and his impatience to get the lucky dog got the best of him, this was just icing on the cake and BV just happened to be in the way. If it were a payback why wait all this time and so many races later? I don’t think that was the case here. In all honesty Jr. is not that good of a driver and is quite capable of making mistakes!
BV was not wrecked on purpose, there's no way Jr. was that dumb. That being said, all Jr. had to do was hit 83 in the rear going down the backstretch and bump draft him. I do NOT blame Vickers at all for what he did. Think about it, he's out in front of the leader trying to keep his lap and Jr. is swooping low to make it 3-wide and undoubtedly put Vickers in the middle to be shuffled back through the field (and behind the leader). The block there was the only thing that made sense. Sucks that it took out a lot of good cars and most of the field.
Also, if the 88 were to hit his marks in the pit stall, he wouldn't be in that situation...but I guess that was Vickers fault too? :rolls eyes:
Also, what's with the self-righteous AJ stuff on the blog comments? Please do not come here and act as if we, as Red Bull fans, are not still pulling for AJ. It was great to see him do well this week, and we're all happy for him. It wasn't OUR choice as fans to replace him with Speed. I don't think ANY of us here would be surprised if AJ finished better than Speed. So, please, I beg you..it's the first freaking race, please stop with all the AJ self-righteous lovefest. I can't take it.
No, I agree -- it was a mistake, that's way it's called an accident. But Jr. obviously didn't do it on purpose. To say he should have been parked, that would've been fair considering the Leffler incident the other day, but it also would have been an unpopular decision. That's why almost all my interest in NASCAR is lost.
I agree, what is good for the rest of the field should be good for Jr! He should have recieved his 5 lap penatly!
But in all fairness, remember when Vickers picked up his first win and wrecked Jimmy and Jr.? Payback?
Payback for an incident two-and-a-half years ago, when both of them were in different cars? Yeah, that's it.
Anyway ... after running up front for all of the Shootout, and all of the Duel, and the first ~60 laps of the 500, all of a sudden the 83 went backwards. Maybe it was the handling, maybe it was the tires, but it was something. Then he got burned by a yellow after a green-flag stop, and then Junior dumped him.
So, not the final result we had in mind, but you've got to be happy with the performance over the week as a whole.
The car didn't fall off. BV told his crew chief he was saving his tires because everyone was loose and to let him know if he needed to get back to the front, he could do it anytime. That was right before the green flag caution that was where he got burned. The cars performance was right up there.
The car didn't fall off. BV told his crew chief he was saving his tires because everyone was loose and to let him know if he needed to get back to the front, he could do it anytime. That was right before the green flag caution that was where he got burned. The cars performance was right up there.
I wonder if all of you have been reading what's on the Internet about Vickers and Jr. Jr. said he'd meet Vickers in the garage and kick his A-- if he wasn't to fight! Next weekend race should be a good one with Jr. ????? Let's hope Jr. doesn't have another BAD weekend! All the news people are on Brian's side and Jr. doesn't like that. Boo Hoo :(
It's because of all the excuses Jr made after the race.
anon, you are dead on about the whole "meet me after the race" thing. I was there and listening to bv the whole race on the scanner. after i switched over to the 88 to see what he was saying. I quote "tell him to meet me at my bus after the race so i can whoop his ass."
I see both sides of the argument. Both drivers were at fault, but the way i see it, what bv did, didn't take out half the front runners. what jr did caused the wreck. bv might have made an ill advised move but no contact was made. jr initiated contact.
I hope the car this week is as strong as the shootout, nationwide, and 500 cars were this week. it was a pleasure to watch it all happen even though bv never got to victory lane. the rest of the season is gonna be a hell of a ride.
haha.. Jr can't get out of his own way, let alone kick someone's ass. He's let all this ass kissing go to his head to the point to where he thinks he does no wrong. Loved Jimmy Spencer's comments on Nascar Victory Lane. Hit the nail on the head!
What was Jimmy Spencer's comment? I missed Victory Lane.
Something tells me Scott is going to leave us on a cliffhanger, Curt... lol
:(
It's rare that Jimmy Spencer backs up Vickers. He's usually bashing him.
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