MichiganCircleTrack.com is the online home of the MARC Times Racing News & Michigan Racing Scene and MARCTimesTV.

Brian Vickers was able to stretch his fuel and garner a well deserved victory at Michigan International Speedway (MIS) in the "Show me the Carfax 400" Sprint Cup race on Sunday. It was the very first visit to Victory Lane for the Red Bull Racing Team and also the first Sprint Cup win for Toyota at the historic two mile oval in the Irish Hills. This was Vickers second win in the Sprint Cup Series, but he had not tasted victory for 87 races, so this one was a long time coming for the 25 year old from North Carolina.

Brian has really taken a liking to MIS lately, with three straight poles here in the Sprint Cup events. He nearly pulled off a rare weekend sweep by winning poles in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races and nearly winning Saturday's Nationwide Carfax 250 race as well. A special thanks by the way to Carfax for stepping up and sponsoring both races this weekend; they are the first race sponsor at MIS to take on both events and did an outstanding job.

Vickers led the field at the start of the race, but was passed by Mark Martin who held the top spot for a while; however the race was halted for some very odd isolated sprinkles that seemed to come out of nowhere. After a brief red flag of 19 minutes, the race restarted and Johnson quickly took command. The race was relatively incident free with just six caution flag periods and several long green flag runs. NASCAR's double file resart rule made for spectacular racing on the re-starts with the cars going three and four wide on throughout the field which really showcased  the great racing that MIS can offer.  In my opinion, NASCAR has really hit it out of the park with this change in the restart procedure.

The leaders tried a variety of pit strategies to gain track position, but the timing of the last caution caused all the crew chiefs a lot of grief as they were concerned the fuel might be close if it went green the rest of the way. Well, go green it did!

The race was very similar to the June race; in fact it was all too familiar to Jimmie Johnson. If you recall, Johnson and Greg Biffle both ran out of fuel on the last lap of the June LifeLock 400 at MIS handing the win to Mark Martin. In an instance of déjà vu all over again, the same three drivers were involved in fuel issues in this race as well. Just like in June, Johnson dominated and led the most laps, but unfortunately he ran out again in nearly an identical spot with just 2 laps remaining. Biffle again ran out this time, and Martin also fell short this time as well.

Brian Vickers in his Red Bull No. 83 had been right on the rear bumper of Johnson the last 20 laps or so and was looking to make a last lap move for the win, but when Jimmie surprisingly pulled down pit road with just two laps to go, all Vickers had to do was hope he had enough fuel to finish the last two miles.

Brian did a wild slide through the grass in celebration of his triumph and headed to victory lane to share the moment with his crew. "He asked me to give him two laps and I gave him five so he said, ‘Go get it and do what you did here last time,'" Vickers said. "It was a great call. We also took just two tires on our last pit stop to keep our track position and gamble on fuel."

Johnson commented about his fuel issue, "We've won only one fuel-mileage race and it's just not what we're good at," "I think it's a little too risky for us to even try it. We got lucky once at Phoenix but outside of that we've always come up short. I did all I could running half throttle about 80 to 90 per cent of the last run and I don't know how else I could have saved any more fuel. It sucks to run so good here and not get a victory."

2nd place Jeff Gordon was told he would be three laps short. "That's six miles at Michigan," said Gordon, "I knew I saved a lot on our last pit stop. I felt I saved us at least a lap and maybe two. I really thought the 83 would run out after the 48  ran out but he didn't so we'll take another second." With this finish, Jeff has now moved past Johnson to 2nd in the points.

3rd place Earnhardt Jr. said, "I was trying to catch them and we were the fastest car until we got to within about 15 car lengths of Jeff and then we got real tight," "At that point someone had to try to chance it and race for the win and it looked like Vickers was the one to do that."

There are only a couple races left to determine who will make the Chase and the battle for the coveted 12th and final spot is really heating up. Vickers really improved his chances with the win and moved up to 13th while a surprisingly uncompetitive Kyle Busch dropped a couple spots putting him outside looking in. The real loser for the chase points however was Mark Martin as running out of fuel caused him to end up with a poor 31st place finish putting him in 12th just 12 points ahead of Vickers.