Unbelieva-Bull: Brian Vickers wins pole, Scott Speed fails to qualify
Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers celebrates his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole Friday at Infineon Raceway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
SONOMA, Calif. – Red Bull Racing was the story of the day in qualifying for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the winding Infineon Raceway road course – for reasons both good and bad.
Red Bull’s Brian Vickers was the positive angle, shockingly winning the pole for what will be his first career top-15 starting spot at a road course.
“The biggest thing for me was just not making any mistakes,” he said. “We had a really good car, and I just didn’t want to mess it up.”
Vickers has never finished in the top 10 at Sonoma, but he somehow put together a near-perfect lap to win the top spot with speed lap of 93.678 mph, just ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch (93.415) and JTG Daugherty Racing’s Marcos Ambrose.
“It hasn’t been my best track, but I do enjoy coming here,” Vickers said.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Tony Stewart and Richard Petty Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne also had strong efforts to round out the top five, followed by Martin Truex Jr. (Earnhardt Ganassi Racing), Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas), Elliott Sadler (Petty), Boris Said (EM Motorsports) and Roush Fenway Racing’s Matt Kenseth.
It was only the second time Toyota has qualified 1-2-3 (the other being October 2007 at Talladega), but the news was not as good Vickers’ Red Bull teammate Scott Speed.
Speed, a Northern California native and road-course specialist who expected to have dozens of friends and family in attendance for Sunday’s race, went off course after exiting Turn 10 and failed to qualify. It was unclear whether Red Bull would try to secure another team’s car for Speed to drive on Sunday.
Chris Cook – a driving instructor for a racing school at Infineon – also missed the race in his Front Row Motorsports car, along with Tom Hubert (Kirk Shelmerdine Racing) and Tommy Baldwin Racing’s Brian Simo.
Fan favorite Said was the fastest of the go-or-go-home drivers and made the show, along with Prism Motorsports’ Dave Blaney, Phoenix Racing’s Ron Fellows, Nemco Motorsports’ Joe Nemechek, TRG Motorsports’ David Gilliland, Germain Racing’s Max Papis, Robby Gordon Motorsports’ P.J. Jones and Brandon Ash Racing’s Brandon Ash.
