Toyota upstages the Big Three in Detroit's backyard

  
Brian Vickers: Due, and overdue (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   BROOKLYN, Mich.
   If you're a prospective NASCAR sponsor, you might be having some second thoughts about this game:
   Meth.
   Lawsuits.
   Racism.
   General Motors and Dodge seemingly on the ropes.
   Sponsors with contracts asking for relief.
   And TV ratings down another 10 percent.
   A lot of upside potential here, eh.
   Wanna buy a team?
   Okay, it's not really all that bad, of course, but NASCAR has been through a few ragged weeks.
   So now how about another hot race? The sport has a run of thrillers going, even that gas mileage finish last Sunday at Pocono.
   And how about a new face in victory lane?
   If so, maybe Brian Vickers, who put Ryan Pemberton's Toyota on the pole Friday for Sunday's Michigan LifeLock 400.
   Vickers beat Kyle Busch for the top spot, at 189.110 mph, a cool tenth of a second faster, which made Busch do a double-take.
   Busch may be working on the new villain in NASCAR, relishing the hoots and hollers, much as the late Dale Earnhardt once did.
   But Vickers has been working on polishing his act, and he has it honed to an amazing edge, even down to that cool pad in New York City's Soho district, not from Jimmie Johnson's place up the street in Chelsea.
   Now all Vickers needs is a good win or two. It's been almost three years since his lone Cup tour win, that controversial Talladega run.
   But Vickers is still only 25, with a lot of upside potential.
   So far this season Vickers and Pemberton have a pair of fifths (Atlanta and Charlotte), a pair of eighths (Talladega and Las Vegas), and a 10th at California. But they've been too erratic, and they're stuck 17th in the points.
   "We had the car to win here last year….but we got put back a bunch of positions under the last caution, and NASCAR eventually conceded it made a mistake, but that cost us the race," Vickers says. He was on the pole for that August race, but Carl Edwards wound up winning.
   "We'll just have to get some luck," Vickers said.
   This two-mile track, circa 1969, has been Jack's Place lately, with Jack Roush winning a bunch of races here, with Edwards, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth.
   But the Roush men will have to rally to make it to the front.  Kenseth, the leader of the pack, starts back in the eighth row…next to surprising Bill Elliott, whose Wood brothers team has been doing rather well with its limited schedule this season.
   "I'm very pleased with the progress," Elliott says. "We have come a long way.
    "For us to unload here and go from being one of the worst cars on the board to being a very respectable car on the board says a lot.
    "Running a limited amount of races has really paid off.  David Hyder (crew chief) and all the guys back at the shop have really improved this car 100 percent. From where we started the first of the year to the last two or three races, we've learned a lot."
    How ironic is it that Toyota swept the front row for this Detroit-area track?
    Vickers takes the question in stride: "I didn't grow up in the 'Detroit' generation; I grew up in an international generation.
   "But Toyota is as much of an American car as any of them right now. In fact Toyota may be the only car in this series made in the U.S."
    Hmmm.
    Or, ouch?