Brian Vickers Diary: Cramp 600

After my first 600-mile race, I have just one thing to say: Thank goodness for Gatorade.

There's no doubt it was the longest race of my life, an extremely long race and one I thoroughly enjoyed. But during the second long, green-flag run, I honestly didn't know if I was going to make it through the thing.

BRIAN VICKERS  •  Driver Page  •  Ditech Racing Room  •  Diary: All-Star experience  •  Diary: Ready for Richmond  •  Diary: Ga-ga over Augusta  •  Diary: Lovin' Atlanta  •  Diary: Learning so much from the Hendricks

There was a problem with the air coming into my helmet. It wasn't working very well and I couldn't feel any air. I don't know what was wrong with it, but normally I can feel it. This time I couldn't, so I don't know if it was broken or the fan was too slow or what, but it just wasn't pushing the air to me like it normally does.

Then, my water bottle messed up on me. I went that entire second long run without anything to drink and became dehydrated. I was hurting, man, badly. I made it through the first long run fine, but during the second one it really caught up to me, and I was begging for a caution.

So when we had those cautions there at the end of the second long run, my GMAC crew gave me two big bottles of Gatorade, and I inhaled the stuff. I drank them both under that caution, destroying both bottles in a matter of minutes. I could almost feel it going through me.

After that, I felt fine for the rest of the race. But during that one section, I was really hurting, completely dehydrated. I've never really been that bad before.

I emptied those two big bottles, which is worth five or six pounds of body weight. Even with drinking all that fluid, and three more regular-sized bottles of Gatorade after the race, I still lost eight pounds during the race.

Had I not gotten that fluid, I'd have easily lost 10 pounds, if not more. That's nearly 10 percent of my body weight, so you can see how the lack of hydration can get to you.

The last 100 miles, I felt good as new. Once I got that fluid in me, I was ready to get after it. I actually felt much better the last hundred miles than I did the first 400.

I've trained really hard to stay in shape, so it wasn't like I was out of shape or completely whipped. I was just completely dehydrated. My muscles were cramping so badly. My toes were cramping, my legs were cramping, my arms. Man, I could hardly move without something locking up. Let me tell you, that affects your focus tremendously.

	Brian Vickers fights Kevin Harvick for position early in last Sunday's Coca-Cola 600. Credit: Autostock

It was hard, but once I got re-hydrated, I was fine. And it's not like I slacked off this week. I hydrated really well before the race, but you still have to drink a ton of fluids during the race.

If my water hadn't messed up on me, and I'd have had the Gatorade I needed throughout the race, I don't think it would have been a big deal.

It was a long race, and it felt like a long race, but it wasn't really that bad. What got me was the lack of hydration and the cramping. I heard Matt Kenseth experienced some cramping, too. Those long, green-flag runs disallowed us the ability to hydrate, to stop and take a drink.

So when I got the chance, I drank as much as I could as fast as I could, and fortunately felt like a new man in a matter of minutes.

So I'll say it again, because I'm a believer. Thank goodness for Gatorade.