A couple weeks ago I attended a press conference at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. In attendance was Scott Pruett (who didn’t know it at the time but would later be screwed by his own teammate at the Busch race in Mexico), NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle Rider Angelle Sampey, IndyCar Series driver Marco — Grandson of Mario — Andretti (sporting some interestingly decorated & detailed jeans) and NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series rookie A.J. Allmendinger, a native of Los Gatos, Calif.
Poor A.J. He has yet to qualify his #84 Red Bull Toyota Camry for any of the Cup series races this year. I sincerely hope that his team can pull it together, at least in time for the race at Infineon in June. Since he is from the Bay Area it would be nice to qualify and run in front of his hometown crowd.
I’m really bringing up A.J. for another reason. At the press conference there were media materials laid out representing all of the drivers in attendance. If you watched the special they ran before the Daytona 500 this year about Toyota’s entry into Cup racing you would have seen the photo shoot for this booklet. The results are great. They made ‘em look tall! The Team Red Bull booklet stood out and is by far the best piece of marketing for a race team that I have seen in quite some time.
I’m sure Brian Vickers is much happier now hawking an energy drink instead of womens shampoo. Bye Bye Garnier Fructis!
See for yourself in the photos below…
These are little cards that you can take out of the booklet and do with as you please. Nice touch!
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Dear Juan Pablo,
Congratulations on winning your first NASCAR Busch Series race! Today’s race in Mexico meant a lot to you and Latinos everywhere. I know that you were really excited and anxious to get a win under your belt, but did you really need to take out your own teammate, Scott Pruett, to do it? Frankly this type of behavior is inexcusable. You just don’t do that type of thing. You had the better car, we all knew it, why couldn’t you have held off and passed him cleanly in another area of the track?
This taints your win and even though you said you didn’t mean to, this is going to follow you around for a while. Don’t you remember just last year when Brian Vickers made that bonehead move at Talladega that took out his teammate Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Yea, many people weren’t very happy with him after that.
Your own Crew Chief, Brad Parrott, was crying after the race because he felt so bad that you screwed over someone on your team. That alone speaks volumes, as it is something that I have never seen in NASCAR before today. You should feel bad, very, very bad! You made a grown man cry!
Ok, ok, so I’m sure this will all blow over in a couple weeks, but don’t think people are going to forget about this. Make sure the next time you win you don’t step on someone else to get there.
Sincerely,
Valli
Poor Brian Vickers, Nobody had any reason to dislike him at all before yesterday. I was pretty much indifferent. He hadn’t done anything yet one way or the other in his Cup career. He was completely under the radar.
Not so much anymore. All the juicy bits are coming out now. Ever since Vickers asked to leave Hendrick Motorsports at the end of this season he’s been kept out of the team meetings. Which makes sense; I mean you wouldn’t want him to take the team secrets to his ride with Toyota next year. But now that he’s messed up big time, will he ever be able to be friends with ANYONE at Hendrick? I’m sure they’ll forgive and forget, or at least say that they have.
NASCAR drivers are great at that kind of thing, being all PC and making nice-nice. I’m sure Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway they’ll be downplaying the entire situation in the pre-race interviews. But you know once they get on that race track Vickers had better stay out of trouble or he may find himself in the middle of an “accident.”
Not that I think anyone should do that to him. After all, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have a championship to think about and that’s way more important than Vickers’ incredibly lame lapse in judgment.
Oh. My. God.
I cannot believe it. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading on the last lap of the UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway today but got wrecked, along with Jimmie Johnson, because of Brian Vickers. Vickers ended up winning the race.
I am so mad. I can’t believe that nut job wrecked his own teammate! What was he thinking??? Oh I know what he was thinking; he was thinking he would get his first win by being an impatient little punk.
I’m sorry; Brian Vickers has officially added his name to my crap list. Junior led the most laps of the race, he dominated, and his car was obviously the best. He even came back from being a lap down!! This is so incredibly not fair. I’m sure my neighbors think I’m crazy because I was screaming at the TV, cursing up a storm.
The last lap people! There was less than a lap left! UGH!!! It just hurts in points the most. Had Junior finished first, and because Jeff Burton was way back in the field, he would of gained three spots in the Championship and only been 26 points behind with 7 races left to go.
I’m not sure where he’ll end up now, as I type NASCAR is still figuring out the official race results.
Vickers was booed by the Talladega fans, as is customary when you ruin a perfect day for the most popular driver of NASCAR. Of course he said he was sorry to Jimmie Johnson, his teammate until the end of the season, but he didn’t say sorry to Junior! He actually insinuated that it was Junior’s fault that he got hit. Are you kidding me??
Yea, I’m just kinda mad. 
