Championship Shouldn't be Decided by Brian Vickers - NASCAR Should Have Parked Him

I'll stand up and take the wrath of the Brian Vickers fans, but his performance at Martinsville crossed the line. Don't know why, but he caused way too many cautions and took out too many cars. The comments about Vickers of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards have to be taken with a grain of salt, since they are embroiled in the Championship Chase and all had their performance screwed up at one time or another Sunday by Brian.

I highly respect analyst Ricky Craven, a pretty talented former driver with a good head on his shoulders. "Forty-three cars started this race," ESPN analyst Ricky Craven said afterward, "and I think Brian Vickers hit half of them."

There comes a time when a driver has to be parked and NASCAR has been willing to do it in the past, backwhen its officials like Dick Beaty, Bill Gazaway, Noris Friel, etc. had some intestinal fortitude. I remember watching the late Bub Strickler in a Grand National race at Rockingham after he caused his third caution. To the garage he went, courtesy of NASCAR, not to return to the track that day.

You can't let one driver, regardless the reason, cause as many wrecks and cautions as Vickers did at Martinsvilleand stay on the track.

I know NASCAR has a short memory, but geeze, it's only been 9 years since the Martinsville incident described below. Is their memory that short?

MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Winston Cup driver Kevin Harvick has been "parked" by NASCAR officials and will not be allowed to drive in Sunday's Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway, several sources confirmed late Saturday. A formal announcement of the action is expected at the track Sunday morning. Grand National series driver Kenny Wallace will drive Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet in Sunday's race, sources said. He would have to start at the rear of the field since he did not qualify the car.

Harvick's "parking" - defined in the NASCAR rulebook as an emergency action that is "final, non-appealable and non-reviewable" - comes in response to NASCAR officials' demand he park his truck after spinning Coy Gibbs in Saturday's NASCAR Truck series race at Martinsville.

Harvick and Gibbs tangled on the track several times over the course of several laps. Gibbs spun Harvick one time exiting Turn 4. Following a caution on Lap 188, Harvick rammed Gibbs' rear bumper entering Turn 1 and finally spun him exiting Turn 2.

NASCAR had enough, black-flagged Harvick and parked him for the day.

Don't know whether you are familiar with the Brian Vickers feature done this past year in Maxim Magazine or not. I read quite a few accounts of the article. Brian's actual quotes can't be printed on a family fiendly web site, but here's a short cleaned up version from the Birmingham News. Ifthe story is accurate and the descriptions of Brian's social life by Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are accurate, I hope Brian is high on the list of NASCAR drivers who are made to "pee in the cup" on more than just a random basis. Martinsville is one thing, but you put a driver on a big track whose head is screwed up and you're talking about killing folks.

Hard-partying NASCAR driver Brian Vickers profiled in Maxim
February 15, 2011

The Birmingham News

Brian Vickers is making his return to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Daytona after missing much of last season when he had to be treated for blood clots.

And he's making a splash this week with a profile story of him in Maxim, which paints a picture of a driver who is just as committed to partying as he is to working out. The profile was written by Mike Guy, who did a similar profile of Tony Stewart for Rolling Stone in 2008.

Here are a few sample paragraphs with a couple changes to bring the rating down to PG:

"Back on the rebound, Vickers follows the old routine: an insanely fastidious fitness regimen (hard biking, yoga, healthy meals) combined with hard drinking spells that fuel his relentless, connoisseur's pursuit of ... (women) ... in all its forms. BV's evenings can play out like the young-money equivalent of racetrack pileups: He gains velocity by consuming untold vodkas, lurches from club to bar to club, and staggers home with women in multiples. Whether he remembers anything the next morning is a crapshoot. One day he e-mails me, "You know it was a good night when you find a picture of you at a bar, with a dog...and you don't know where it came from." The attached photo shows him yowling at the camera in a dark Manhattan bar with a confused terrier in his lap. His war stories are legendary among friends. But in a testament to Vickers' drive, they all seem to end with him bouncing back like a comic book character.

I join him on one of those nights, in a bar on Houston Street. Vickers is drinking like an elite athlete--draining a succession of vodkas, waiting for the bar's owner, a dissolute pop singer named Gavin DeGraw. Vickers makes a phone call to Jeff Gordon, hectoring him for not coming out to get trashed.

"(Expletive) Gordon," Vickers says. "He used to be a lot of fun."

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

I certainly agree, Dave, that such actions shouldn't decide the championship. Frankly, all I knew about Brian was that I prayed for him daily when he was going through the medical problems. I had NO idea of these underlying personality disorders. I did observe that one spin was the direct result of Matt Kennseth lifting the rear wheels off the ground.


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What a change! It's been awhile since I've checked in and I'm quite surprised. It may take me awhile to figure it our but first look it's really great.

I agree...are wecrowning a Sprint Cup Champion orone for expensive demo derby. Here's what I would do...I would park him. AND,I would let everybody in the race know, that if you take out a Chase driver while getting revenge on another...you get NO POINTS & NO MONEY that race, and suspended for the next race. Ifa Chase driver takes out a Chase driver...it would depend on situation...but same rule applies. This would also keep teammates that are out of the Chase... taking out a rival's team car that isin the Chase.

A pretty good summary ( Even if it is a Fox News piece) here of various driver quotes, etc. recapping the feelings about Mr. Vickers' driving at Martinsville:

VICKERS INFURIATES MANY AT MARTINSVILLE

Published October 31, 2011
Fox Sports Network

Martinsville, VA Brian Vickers became driver enemy number lap slugfest at Martinsville Speedway. If Vickers did one thing right during the day, he left the racetrack quickly and quietly.

In a race that featured a season-high 18 cautions, Vickers was involved in five of them, including three that occurred during the first 100 laps. Jamie McMurray and Chase driver Matt Kenseth would've loved to have at it with Vickers after the dust had settled at NASCAR's shortest track. Jimmie Johnson might have wanted a word with him as well.

Vickers started the ruckus on lap 28 when he was involved in a crash with Regan Smith and Dave Blaney. He then tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya before bumping into Jamie McMurray and putting him into the outside wall. McMurray tried to retaliate against Vickers but made contact with the wall again.

"I saw [Vickers] get inside of me, and I tried to block, and I couldn't get down far enough," McMurray said. "When we got down in there, it seemed like he let off the brake a little early and sent me for a ride. It's just one of those really frustrating tracks, and it brings out the bad in people."

After banging each other's doors several times in the late going, Kenseth had enough of Vickers when he turned him around, forcing the 15th caution. Kenseth was involved in a multi-car wreck shortly after when he locked his brakes and spun around. He took out title contender Kyle Busch, as well as Joey Logano and Montoya.

"He just kept hitting me in the door," Kenseth said. "We're at Martinsville, and I gave him the bottom. Obviously, I'm not gonna roll over and let him go with 40 [laps] to go or whatever it was, and he just kept driving in harder and harder, and he slammed me in the door at least five times and just ran me up in the marbles, and I was just tired of it, so I spun him out."

Kenseth suffered a broken track bar during the multi-car wreck and spent several laps in the garage for repairs.

While Johnson was holding a comfortable lead with less than 10 laps to go, Vickers attempted to get even with Kenseth but failed in his efforts, as he spun around. The final caution setup a three-lap shootout to the finish. After the restart, Tony Stewart passed Johnson and then held him off at the finish. Stewart has won three of the first seven Chase races. He's also moved to within eight points of leader Carl Edwards.

"I certainly understand that if you're unfairly wrecked, regardless of who that person is, there's a chance retaliation is going to happen," Johnson said following his second-place finish. "After a fourth, fifth time with the same car in the crash, you start thinking about maybe you're the problem. Something is going on. You're having a bad day. You need to stop crashing for whatever reason."

Johnson certainly needed the win to help keep his slim title hopes alive. The five-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion is 43 points behind Edwards with just three races to go.

"I don't agree with the way things were handled at the end," Johnson noted. "Tony Stewart is sitting in victory lane smiling, and he's real happy it turned out that way."

Vickers, a non-Chase driver, finished 30th in his banged up No.83 Red Bull Toyota. He had no comment after the race. Vickers' future in Sprint Cup is in doubt right now, as Red Bull is pulling out of the sport at season's end.

Kenseth's 31st-place finish at Martinsville put him 36 points behind Edwards. He entered this race 14 points in back of his Roush Fenway Racing teammate.

Vickers wasn't the only culprit in the Martinsville demolition derby. Marcos Ambrose and Montoya clashed, while Kurt Busch got turned around by Paul Menard. Busch also had encounters with Jeff Burton and Ryan Newman.

Martinsville was indeed the latest chapter in NASCAR's "boys, have at it."

"It seemed like guys were ticked off at one another, driving over their heads," said third-place finisher Jeff Gordon, who bounced back after being involved in a six-car accident during the opening laps. "We saw that for a big majority of the race. Obviously, the 83 had that throughout the whole race. But I think it was just one of those crazy days. I don't know. You can't always explain it. Usually Martinsville does contribute towards that."

Stewart seemed to be the only one who wasn't caught up in the commotion at Martinsville, which was probably a good thing.

"I think they ought to get a portable boxing ring," he said. "As soon as they get done with the victory celebration, set the boxing ring on the frontstretch and give the fans a real show they paid for. If you want to boost the attendance at Martinsville, have a boxing match with each of the guys that had a beef with each other."

Ding, ding, ding!

Round eight in the Chase bout is Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/10/31/vickers-infuriates-many-at-martinsville/#ixzz1cPk2eYpB

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

While I fully agree that Vickers was a pinball all day, he did nothing to Matt to deserve getting sent into the wall other than race him hard side by side for many laps and passing him for 8th place. Matt, like a lot of the drivers these days, simply felt Vickers deserved to have his day ruined for having the audacity to race a Chaser hard. That aside, Matt was the one who made the mistake that caused the most damage to his car anyway, when he overshot Turn 3 and ran into Kyle.