At the opposite end of the spectrum, Brian Vickers was hardly the model of restraint in his approach to Saturday night’s race — and understandably so.
Vickers had something to prove, having started the weekend with the news that his crew chief and long-time friend, Rodney Childers, was leaving Michael Waltrip Racing to work with Kevin Harvick next year at Stewart-Haas Racing.
Childers’ comments to the effect that he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to work with a driver of Harvick’s caliber had to sting Vickers, who drove on and beyond the edge at Bristol to prove a point.
Vickers was involved in the Lap 358 wreck that KO’d Jimmie Johnson. On Lap 447, he turned left into Denny Hamlin’s Toyota, cut Hamlin’s right front tire and triggered a collision that wiped out Chase contenders Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman and Brad Keselowski, among others.
When the dust settled, however, Vickers finished fourth. Harvick, another victim of the Lap 447 accident, rolled home 34th, 51 laps down.
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