New focus has Vickers, Red Bull thinking Chase

Joining the rest of his Toyota teammates in a disappointing 2007 season, Brian Vickers has helped propel the manufacturer into the thick of the Sprint Cup Chase in '08. Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR

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Brian Vickers couldn't believe it. The laps were winding down in February's Gatorade Duel, and he was experiencing the wrong type of déjà vu at 180 miles an hour.

For the second straight year, a right rear tire was going flat on his No. 83 Toyota; and just like that, Vickers' chances of making the Daytona 500 hung in the balance.

It was a prime opportunity to panic. Instead, it proved a turning point for a second-year team that's starting to grow up.

"The car started to vibrate really bad," Vickers explained to SI.com. "Last year, I tried to ride it out because I didn't want to pit and lose a lap. I took that chance ... I stayed out hoping we would make it, and we didn't. The right rear blew apart, we wrecked, and missed the race."

That led to a nightmare debut for Team Red Bull, a season in which Vickers failed to qualify 13 times en route to a career-low 38th place finish in points. Not exactly the type of numbers you want to repeat; so, with the tire shredding and that knowledge in hand, the fifth-year veteran took a different approach in '08.

"I said, 'Guys, we're pitting, put four tires on it and let's go," he recalled. "We came back out, we went a lap down, but we raced our way back."

"The caution came out, we got the lap back, we raced our way to the front again, and made it into the race."

Since then, the 24-year old hasn't looked back. An 11th in that qualifier led to a 12th place finish in the Great American Race; Vickers has added two more top 12s since to boost his way up to ninth in points.

It's made him the hidden star amid Toyota's sudden resurgence, an effort led by Kyle Busch now, but Vickers is busy building a momentum for future success. The highest ranked of any team forced to qualify on speed for the first five races, Team Red Bull's No. 83 is now assured of a "locked in" qualifying spot beginning at Martinsville the end of the month -- even if they fail to qualify at Bristol this weekend.

Not bad for a team that struggled to even stay on the radar screen at this point last season.

"We learned from our mistakes," said Vickers. "Last year, we were trying to reinvent the wheel, and a lot of times, we just kind of beat ourselves."

"This year, we went back to basics. There were times where we were the fastest car on the race track last year. There were races where we led the most laps. Not everything was bad ... but we weren't focused on the big picture. We won a couple of battles here and there; we just didn't win the war. And this year, we are focused on winning the war."

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