How Did Brian Vickers Make the Chase? Irony and Dale Jr.

The final run Brian Vickers made into the Chase will go down as one of the best ever. Over the 8 races leading up to the Chase, nobody scored more points than Vickers, who earned 6 top 10s and a win at Michigan during that stretch. By all means, a run that propelled him into his first ever Chase for the Sprint Cup.

But if you want to single out the one race that may have earned Vickers his Chase spot, you need not look any further than the first race of the season: The Daytona 500.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Vickers crashed out of that race, finishing 39th. But let me take you back to that fateful lap that, at the time, infuriated the Red Bull driver.

It’s lap 123 of the Daytona 500. Elliott Sadler is the leader. Two positions behind him is the driver that has dominated the day: Kyle Busch. On the inside, it’s Vickers, one lap down, with a frustrated Dale Earnhardt Jr. storming up behind him. Earnhardt, also a lap down, attempts to make a pass on Vickers. Vickers blocks, forcing Earnhardt below the yellow line.

What happens next is the defining moment of Vickers’ season.

Earnhardt taps Vickers once, then turns him head-on in front of about 35 cars. The first one that hits him: Kyle Busch, who suffers far more damage to his Toyota than does Vickers. In all, 12 cars are collected in this accident. But for the time being, nobody else matters. It’s just these two. The final Chase spot came down to these two drivers, who, in the end, were separated by a mere 8 points.

What’s interesting is that, in this rare case, we are not looking at who gained more points, but rather who lost less. Busch was likely going to finish in the top 5, if not win. Had everything played out just as it did in February, it is very likely that Busch, not Kenseth, would’ve been leading the train past Elliott Sadler on the final green flag lap of the race, while Vickers would have very likely still been a lap down. Or, at best, near the back of the lead lap.

Comparing these results, placing Busch as the winner and Vickers as the last car on the lead lap, with the actual race results, Busch lost 145 points, while Vickers lost 24. That’s 121 points that Busch lost to Vickers.

Let’s say that Busch won the race, and Vickers climbed all the way up to, say 20th, which is generous considering where he ran all day. Under those circumstances, Busch would have gained 87 points on Vickers. Even if Vickers finished 2nd, Busch still would have gained 25 points on him(assuming Vickers didn’t lead a lap and Busch led the most).

Instead, Busch gained just 4 points on Vickers. Count ’em, 4. Even under the second scenario, that’s 21 points that Busch could’ve gained that just slipped away.

He needed 8.

I bet if you would’ve told Brian Vickers when 35 cars were coming at him broad-side in the first race of the season that it would be the best thing that happened to him all year, he would’ve quit Team Red Bull and NASCAR to join the National Guard. Instead, as irony would have it, it was the move that helped him make his first ever Chase for the Sprint Cup.

And now, for the first time, he can thank Dale Earnhardt Jr. for wrecking him out of the Daytona 500.