Top 35 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers: No. 12 - Brian Vickers
Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers finished 12th in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings.
// David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers encountered both highs and lows in 2009, collecting the third-year team’s first victory and earning a spot in NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup for the first time but struggling over the course of the final 10 races.
Vickers became the organization's first driver to win a Cup race with his victory in the Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway in August, and the native of Thomasville, N.C., went on to finish 12th in the series standings, earning $4,731,595 in purses.
During the offseason, SceneDaily is taking a look at the top 35 in 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points. Here’s how Vickers' season unfolded:
By the numbers: In 36 starts, Vickers posted one victory, four top-five and 13 top-10 finishes and started from the pole six times. His average finish of 17.3 also marked the best of his Cup career.
Season highlights: Vickers’ victory at Michigan and a pair of back-to-back top-10 finishes at Atlanta and Richmond were monumental in making the Chase for the first time this season.
Key setbacks: An engine failure in the third race of the Chase, at Kansas Speedway in October, was a blow to Vickers championship run, and he could only muster two 11th-place finishes in the final 10 races of the season.
Newsworthy moment: In August, Red Bull Racing announced that Vickers signed a multiyear contract extension and that crew chief Ryan Pemberton would also remain with the No. 83 Toyota team.
In his words: "I still look back at the year and say that it has been a great year for us. We accomplished a lot of things and met all our goals, but we wanted to exceed them. We wanted to wrap the year up running well in the Chase, but unfortunately we missed the opportunity to do that. I feel there's a lot of potential on the team. I felt a lot of potential on the team throughout the entire year. … Hopefully, we can make a charge for the Chase again next season, but we're going to have to learn how to deal with being in the Chase and perform better in the Chase to make a run for the championship. I think that's part of being a new, young team."
