Vickers progressing nicely in Sprint Cup

Toyota driver Brian Vickers sits 13th in the points standings with one regular-season race remaining. When the Chase contender is not racing, he travels the world with extreme athletes. Brian Vickers wants no confusion about his objective when he's behind the wheel of his No. 83 Red Bull Sprint Cup car.

"I want to win races really, really bad," he said.

In two-and-a-half years with Red Bull, Vickers has been able to scratch that itch just once, this season at Michigan.

"It was a relief," said Jay Frye, general manager of Red Bull Racing. "We've been very close to winning. Once you learn how to win, hopefully that opens the floodgates for a lot of other good things to happen."

Since Michigan, Vickers has a 12th-place finish at Bristol and a seventh-place spot at Atlanta. The Bristol race snapped a string of five top 10 finishes in the previous six races.

Vickers is in 13th place in the Race for the Chase. He is 20 points out of the 12th, and final, spot.

He needs a strong race at Richmond International Raceway tomorrow night, and just might get it.

The Atlanta race said quite a bit about Vickers and his crew.

The axle on Vickers Toyota snapped in the middle of the race. His crew was able to repair it while the field was under caution and keep Vickers from losing a lap.

He had been contending for the lead. The malfunction moved him back to the 17th. He spent the rest of the race working back into the top 10.

Vickers does not back down. In fact, he's more inclined to issue a challenge than back away from one.

His dust-up with Kyle Busch after the Nationwide race at Michigan is a prime example.

Busch, angry that Vickers had boxed him in on the track apron on the next-to-last lap, bumped Vickers' front fender after the race. The two exchanged words on pit road, nearly fought, then sat side-by-side during the post-race interview and traded some sharp words.

Busch's opinion was that either he or Vickers deserved to win and that when Vickers side-drafted him, it gave the victory to Brad Keselowski.

Vickers disagreed. His point was that he was driving to win, not keep Keselowoski from winning.

"I put it in my memory bank for the next go round," Vickers said. "That was strike one or two. Either way he's out of strikes. It's not something I'm mad about. I wasn't mad about it at the time.

"I'm going to race him the way he races me. He's out of rope."

Bristol and Atlanta went off without incident between Busch and Vickers. Things could be interesting tomorrow night with Bucsh and Vickers both on the Race for the Chase bubble.

In many ways, Vickers challenges to Busch reflect the product he represents.

Vickers enjoys talking about the "Red Bull" lifestyle, which he describes an extreme, seize-the-day approach to life, leisure and the pursuit of happiness, in an X-Games kind of way.

Vickers has been skydiving, kayaking and ridden motorcycles on street courses. While most sponsors prefer their drivers avoid such activities, the Red Bull lifestyle encourages them.

"You're allowed to be yourself, whoever that may be," Vickers said. "You're allowed to do things you want to do, especially if they're extreme. That's always encouraged. But if you don't want to jump out of an airplane, you're not asked to do it.

"There are no restrictions. But they always want me to stay safe. I get to do some of the things I've always wanted to do with some of the best in the business, the Red Bull athletes around the world, Kirby [Chambliss] in the stunt plane, Tao [Berman] in the kayak and on down the list.

"An appearance for Red Bull is unique. At the track, they might want me to visit the Energy Station, which is basically a nightclub, so that's kind of fun."

Vickers is having so much fun, he signed a multi-year contract extension with Red Bull before the Michigan race.

The victory at Michigan was not related to the new contract. It was more a culmination of the momentum Vickers and his team have been building.

"The chemistry has been there," Vickers said. "The cars have been good, and it's shown up at race track.

"We had problems at the beginning of the year. We're starting to overcome that and have had some luck on our side. Hopefully it stays with us."