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.