Brian Vickers has four top-five finishes this year. Credit: Autostock

Vickers, McGrew closer than ever to victory

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Brian Vickers and Lance McGrew are a proven union, having won the NASCAR Busch Series championship together in 2003. So after Vickers struggled as a Nextel Cup rookie in '04, they were reunited for the current campaign with hopes they'd rekindle that all-important chemistry.

Consider it rekindled.

	Lance McGrew and Vickers Credit: Autostock
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The year started slowly. Vickers finished worse than 30th six times in the first 12 races. But in the nine races since, the No. 25 team has improved dramatically, finishing sixth at Dover, second at Pocono after leading the most laps and fourth at Chicago.

He sat on the pole at New Hampshire, and on Sunday continued the trend by finishing third in the Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"We're real close (to winning) right now," Vickers said. "We have some good cars. Lance and I, the communication is awesome. This team, the pit stops, everyone is doing an awesome job."

Recurring word: communication. Everyone asked uses it when explaining the team's improved performance.

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"Brian and I communicate well, the team's putting together great racecars and we've made good decisions during the race," McGrew said. "We're getting better and better and better, and I feel like we're this close.

"We've been working really hard. Everybody's come together," McGrew said. "It's basically an all-new road crew from last season and it's finally starting to gel."

Some of that added chemistry centers in a brand new shop shared by Vickers' No. 25 team and Kyle Busch's No. 5 bunch. Former No. 24 car chief Brian Whitesell, a lynchpin between the Nos. 24 and 48 teams in recent years, now oversees the 5/25 shop.

Both teams, it seems, have greatly benefited.

"I'll tell you what, it's people," Vickers said. "Rick built us a new shop, but it's the people he put in it that makes the difference. We're so close. We want that win so bad."

They're certainly chipping away at it.

"I always stress to my guys -- to build a strong house you must build a strong foundation, and that's what I feel like we've really worked hard to do throughout the first half of the season," McGrew said. "Hopefully we can spread our legs out and run a little bit in the second half."