Vickers' win tightens Busch points chase

Riggs struggles to 17th-place finish

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Fickle old Darlington Raceway treated Scott Riggs' edge in the Busch Series standings shabbily Saturday, as his four closest pursuers are now all within 79 points of his lead.

Winn-Dixie 200  Results  Standings

Youngster Brian Vickers won the race and cut the most off Riggs' lead when he unofficially jumped from fifth to third in the standings.

But David Green, Ron Hornaday and Jason Keller -- who came into the day second through fourth in points -- all beat Riggs as well.

	Brian Vickers

Riggs battled the intense heat and also was plagued by a setup he could never get comfortable with, particularly in comparison to that which he used to finish third with in the spring, as he finished 17th.

"It was one of the worst days (with the heat) for me -- worse for me than ever before," Riggs said. "You could tell when you start getting cold chills you were getting pretty hot."

Keller finished seventh, Hornaday was 11th; and a mismatched set of tires knocked Green back to 14th.

"Our car started out really good but we had a problem with some spark plugs yesterday in Happy Hour with some spark plugs and never got any long runs in," Green said.

"We were good, running in the top-five and we put a set of tires on it and went back to where we were at the start -- sideways loose -- and we never recovered."

VIDEO CLIPS McMurray wrecks early Play video Biffle's day turns sour Play video Vickers takes the lead Play video Victory Lane Play video Hear from the top five finishers Play video

"We battled back after those two accidents yesterday, when I was trying to drive too hard and got us really behind," Keller said. "It's a testimony to how good this race team is because really we had no practice -- we stayed in the garage area fixing my wrecks all day.

"For us to come out and to have a good solid run like we did today is a great day for us."

At tire-eating Darlington, where track position is even more important than most places on the circuit, Riggs was badly hurt when he had to pit a second time due to loose lug nuts on his first yellow flag stop.

Riggs restarted 19th and never ran better than 16th.

"When you're battling back in the pack and your car is really not right," Riggs said, "That makes it (heat) twice as hard. I just hate it after the kind of run we had here in the spring, to come back and not be where we needed to be."

Heading to Richmond International Raceway next weekend, Riggs now leads Green by 19 points. Vickers is 67 behind, Keller trails by 70 and Hornaday is 79 behind.

"We've got to run good every week -- running 11th ain't gonna cut it and that's part of it," Hornaday said. "We came off the trailer pretty bad and we did everything we could. We started the race thinking we were going to be loose and we were tight."