Vickers, Red Bull come of age with first Chase berth (cont'd)

With all the lofty preseason goals already checked off the to-do list, what's left? Well, winning a championship, of course.

Can they do it? Frye figures why not? He pointed out that during the last 10 races of the regular season, his No. 83 pride and joy ran about as well as anyone else and better than most who are in the Chase. Only Saturday's race winner, Denny Hamlin, and regular-season points leader Tony Stewart registered more points over that stretch -- and not by much.

Ten speed

Most points / past 10 races

Pos.	Driver	Pts.	Wins	Seed*
1.	D. Hamlin	1,482	2	4
2.	T. Stewart	1,442	1	2
3.	B. Vickers	1,409	1	8
4.	K. Kahne	1,366	2	5
5.	M. Martin	1,365	1	1
6.	J. Gordon	1,347	0	6
7.	J. Montoya	1,334	0	11
8.	J. Johnson	1,327	1	3
9.	G. Biffle	1,257	0	12
10.	Ku. Busch	1,238	0	7
11.	C. Edwards	1,229	0	9
12.	R. Newman	1,226	0	10

* To begin Chase

"This team is rolling," Frye said. "If we can keep doing what we've been doing over these last 10 weeks, absolutely we can win the championship.

"We've got to re-set our goals with 10 to go. But that's OK. That's nice. Does this team have the ability to win the championship? Yes."

And the GM doesn't mean just this season, either.

"Brian Vickers is a great, great, young race car driver," said Frye, who recently re-signed the 25-year-old Vickers to a multiyear contract extension. "He has a huge future ahead of him with this team. This is a driver and a team that is going to have to be reckoned with over the next several years."

The plan

So what's the plan going into the Chase, which begins next weekend in New Hampshire?

Well, Vickers' immediate plans involved visiting the U.S. Open tennis tournament Sunday. "We'll go watch some good tennis, but I'll probably have a hangover. We're going to celebrate this Red Bull-style and have a good time [Saturday] night," Vickers promised shortly after the race ended.

It sounded like a solid plan.

So did the plan of Pemberton, who was all smiles Saturday as he thought back to Vickers getting wrecked and finishing 40th in the season-opening Daytona 500 way back in February. The following week began a slow march toward recovery that wasn't complete until last Saturday night.

In fact, Vickers spent virtually the entire season outside the top 12 in points. He inched inside only one week -- he was 11th after the fourth race of the season in Atlanta -- until finishing with the flourish at Richmond.

Asked what he planned to tell the No. 83 team members heading into the Chase, Pemberton said it would remain pretty much business as usual.

"I don't think we'll say much at all," Pemberton said. "As far as the immediate team, the guys you see on a weekly basis, they're all veteran guys. They'll know what to do. We didn't talk about it coming into this week here. We just prepared the car.

"I didn't want to take people out of their rhythm and say, 'Oooo, this is the Chase we're racing for right here.' Shame on us if we're going to do something better or different. If we needed to be doing something better or different, then we should have been doing it all year."

In their first year together as crew chief and driver, they eventually started clicking. Now they aren't only on the same page; they're collaborating on writing one of the best stories of the season.

"And remember," said Frye, "we're only 26 races into Brian and Ryan."

As Hendrick hugged Vickers and turned away Saturday night, the past went, too. The future for the driver of the No. 83 Toyota and his team looms in a different direction and has never looked brighter.

"We don't have to have a meeting right now to figure out what our new goal is," said Pemberton, who couldn't stop smiling.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.