6/20/2009

Vickers Beats Bush For The Pole At Infineon

Vickers Pole Run

Brian Vickers scored his fourth pole position award of the season by having the fastest qualifying time at Infineon Raceway at Sonoma, California.

Vickers was able to rattle off a 93.678 mph qualifying run edging out 2nd place ,Kyle Bush's 93.415 mph, and 3rd place Marcos Ambrose's 93.138 mph.

Vicker's #84 Red Bull Toyota cited numerous qualities that enabled him to score the fastest lap at 76.475 seconds around the 1.99 mile 10 turn race track.
"It was a combination of a lot of things," said Vickers, who is on the pole for a Cup race for the ninth time in his career. "We ran a lot more tape on the car, which does help. Some of it was the changes we made. We made a couple of changes that I think dramatically improved our forward drive off the corner.
"That can reward [you] in a lot of time. Turning a little bit better in the center doesn't always reward in a huge [decrease] in time, whereas drive-off does. The track was probably a little bit quicker, and I didn't make any mistakes. I don't think I did anything special -- I didn't find some particular line -- I just didn't make any mistakes at any turn around the race track, and when all that adds up, it turned out to be a pretty good lap."


Congratulations to Brian Vickers for his second pole position of the season. If poles equated to wins, Vickers would be having a great season. However, he is running 17th in the points position, 5 spots out of the Chase For The Cup where only the top 12 drivers can compete for the championship.

Maybe the fine wine drinkers in Sonoma will acquire a new taste for Red Bull energy drinks when the checker flag waves on Sunday.