Notes: Vickers questions his two speeding penalties

DOVER, Del. -- Brian Vickers' crew was clocked for speeding coming off pit road twice during Sunday's Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway, but it left the driver perplexed as to how it could even happen.

Vickers, who started the race seventh and selected the third pit box, only had a short distance to get his No. 83 Toyota off pit road. But during green-flag stops on Lap 235, Vickers was slapped with a pass-through penalty for speeding. Eleven laps later, he was hit again during the race's fifth caution.

Best Buy 400

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
2.	Carl Edwards	Ford
3.	Greg Biffle	Ford
4.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
5.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
6.	Martin Truex Jr.	Chevrolet
7.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
8.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
9.	Dave Blaney	Toyota
10.	Jamie McMurray	Ford

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"To be honest, I can't explain it," Vickers said. "They called us for speeding twice on pit road, but you know as well as I do, when you're in the last couple of boxes on pit road you can go as hard as you can and can't speed.

"The second time they called us was under caution, I wasn't even racing anybody. I was still in first gear puttering along. I don't know if there's something wrong with their timing and scoring or something funny going on there, but unfortunately it cost us a good finish."

Vickers spent most of the day inside the top 10 before the penalties dropped him two laps down. He was still able to hang on to finish 13th, the first car two laps down.

The same thing happened to Jeff Gordon last year here, and the No. 24 team was stationed in the first pit stall. Red Bull Racing general manager Jay Frye asked Gordon's crew chief Steve Letarte for an explanation.

"The way he explained it is, there's a line and there's one more loop there at the end. At the end you're obviously hammering it, because you're gone, you think. But you're not, you're still inside that thing," Frye said. "We lost two laps because if it. That doesn't help anything.

"The main thing is, the finishes are going to take care of themselves. Like last week at Charlotte, we finished 42nd, but we had one of the best cars there. [Sunday] we finished 13th, but we had one of the best cars here. If we can keep doing that, the finishes will take care of themselves."

Kyle's 'lucky' helmet recovered

Kyle Busch says his recent string of success doesn't hinge on minor things like a lucky helmet. Team owner Joe Gibbs may disagree.

Following Friday night's Truck Series race at Dover, Busch's helmet was stolen from the No. 18 hauler. The culprit reportedly snuck into the garage with the cleanup crew, opened the hauler doors, dumped beer and ice inside and then took off with the headgear, according to Busch.

Track officials were notified and caught the thief. The helmet was returned.

"It didn't matter," Busch said. "It's not a lucky helmet. We used it at Atlanta. Used it again here [Sunday] because it was orange. We didn't have an orange Combos helmet so we had to deal with what we had."

Atlanta was the site of Busch's first victory of the season. His victory at Dover was his series-leading fourth of the year.

"On second thought, it might be a lucky helmet," Gibbs said.

Gordon happy with top-20 after Baja

Robby Gordon's weekend finished better than it started.

Gordon had Matt Crafton sub for him in the No. 7 Dodge for practice and qualifying at Dover while he raced in the Tecate SCORE Baja 500 off-road race in Mexico. Unfortunately for Gordon, a broken hub ended his race early.

Gordon flew to Dover on Saturday night and started the Best Buy 400 on Sunday from the rear of the field due to a driver change.

He wound up 19th after losing a lap early in the race.

"I had a really good car at the end of the race," Gordon said. "I ran the last two fuel runs with Jeff Gordon the whole time, within about five car-lengths of him, and he finished fifth. I think that's the bright side of it.

"The other bright side is after the last two weekends where we've had part failures and bad finishes, it's OK to get a 19th and go to the bank with it."

Mayfield bright spot for Ganassi's No. 40

Named as Chip Ganassi Racing's substitute driver for the No. 40 just last week, Jeremy Mayfield turned in the car's best performance of the season with a 25th-place finish at Dover.

"Our race wasn't bad," Mayfield said. "We got some points and that's what we wanted to do. We qualified 10th and finished in the top 25. We wanted a better day than that, but we just couldn't seem to get freed up for some reason. Overall, it was a good day."

Mayfield was the third different substitute driver in the 40 car since Dario Franchitti broke his ankle in a Nationwide Series race at Talladega in April. Franchitti is expected to be back in the car next week at Pocono.