Who: Scott Speed (82 Red Bull Toyota), Brian Vickers (83 Red Bull Toyota)
NSCS Red Bull Racing Teams No. 82 & No. 83
What: Toyota/Save Mart 350 (Sprint Cup)
When: Sunday, June 21, 2009
Where: Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, Calif.
Results: Scott Speed (start 31, finish 37); Brian Vickers (start 1, finish 16)
+ ANOTHER ONE GETS AWAY
After starting from the pole for the fourth time in 2009, No. 83 driver Brian Vickers led the first sixteen laps of the Toyota/Save Mart 350.
Unfortunately on lap 60 he fell victim to a “wrong place at the wrong time” scenario when the No. 18 got into the No. 77, collecting the No. 83.
“I don’t know why the No. 18 was racing the No. 77 that hard,” Vickers said. “He wrecked him, wrecked himself, and we were caught up in the middle. It cut my right rear tire and closed off the pipes. The car was down 100 or 200 horsepower the rest of the race.”
Vickers brought the car into the pits under green on lap 61 for four fresh tires and fuel.The incident dropped him from 9th to 39th position. For the next 50 laps, driver No. 83 worked his way up through the field, radioing to the crew that “the car is still good, it is
just a mess back here in traffic.”
Vickers finished the race in 16th position, and remained 17th in NASCAR driver points – 123 points out of the coveted top 12.
“The car was good all weekend. We were really fast, especially on the short run,” Vickers said. We made the most of it and finished 6th because it was such a good car. It seems we just can’t catch a break.”
Rookie Scott Speed came up short in Friday’s qualifying session and instead drove the Nemco Motorsports’ No. 87 Toyota in the race with the goal of turning laps and gaining experience.
Per the NASCAR rulebook, Speed slipped to the rear of the field at the start before pit strategy brought him to the front to lead laps 78 and 79. But of course the inevitable happened at a road course — damage to the right front after contact with Joey Logano’s No. 20 in tight turn 11 and then Speed was spun around by Boris Said’s No. 08 on the final lap that forced a green-white-checkered finish.
He ended up 37th.
“I just want to thank all of the guys at Red Bull and Joe Nemechek for getting this car ready for me to race,” Speed said. “They all worked hard over the past couple of days. Certainly not the finish we wanted, but we got lots of laps in my first road-course race in a stock car.”
Speed’s No. 82 Red Bull Toyota remained 36th in the car owner standings — 95 points from the top 35.
+ UP NEXT
Lenox Industrial Tools 301, Sunday, June 28, New Hampshire Motor Speedway
- Red Bull Racing Team, Press Release