As officials rolled the car into the inspection bay, the right side was so scraped up there was nearly as much gray primer as blue and red paint. The sheet metal over the front wheel well was buckled, the hood dented. There was more damage on the inside, from a busted starter to a rupture somewhere within the power steering system to a tire that had been cut down and rolled away.

The vehicle was nearly as beat up as its driver. An exhausted Brian Vickers stood on pit road sucking from a water bottle, his firesuit unzipped to the waist, one elbow bleeding. His voice was weary and his bones were aching from wrestling his No. 83 car through the final stages of NASCAR's longest event.

"We definitely had the car to beat. We hands-down had the best car here [Sunday night], and we proved it every time we had a chance to lead."
- Brian Vickers
"Hardest race I've ever had," he said.

But in the end the pain and punishment were worth it. A fuel-mileage scramble in the final stages Sunday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway left Vickers -- lost power steering, cut tire and all -- with a fifth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600. It was the best result this season for both a Red Bull team that's often struggled to make races, and a Toyota camp that's found the footing decidedly uneven in its first season as a Nextel Cup manufacturer.

"It was a good night for us, but I think it was just another little step in the right direction," said Vickers, whose old ride, the No. 25 of Hendrick Motorsports now driven by Casey Mears, won the race. "I don't think it was big turning point."

But it was a clear boost for a Red Bull organization whose two drivers had failed to qualify for a combined 13 of 22 starts entering Memorial Day weekend. With two cars outside the top 35 in owner points, Charlotte marked only the third time that Vickers and teammate A.J. Allmendinger were both still around on Sunday.

"Any run like this one here is a great shot in the arm," said Doug Richert, Vickers' crew chief. "For the struggles that we've gone through, and not making races, and then we make races and get crashed out early, there's nothing better than this right here to get a team's morale up. Obviously, the morale is going to be up going into Dover."

Sunday marked the best finish for any Toyota entry since Vickers finished 10th at California the second weekend of the year. The revamped Camry engine unveiled in last week's all-star exhibition didn't seem very potent in practice, where Vickers was never faster than 22nd place. In Saturday evening's Happy Hour, he was 35th on the speed chart. But he had a feeling about the car.


"Brian said [Saturday] after practice that this car was really good," said team general manager Marty Gaunt. "He said the car was pretty good at California, but he said after practice here that the car was really good. I said, 'How good?' He said, 'Really good.' Obviously, we don't want to run before we can walk, but we thought we probably had a top-10 car."

They had more than that. An early fuel-only stop gave Vickers track position, and the No. 83 car soared. Vickers led 76 laps, 60 more than all other Toyota entries had led this season combined, before his power steering began to fail about halfway through the race. He had to use the high line around the racetrack so momentum would help him turn the car, and eventually faded from the top 10.


Lap-by-Lap
Casey Mears used fuel to his advantage and stayed out while others came in to pit. The move worked as Mears held on to win the Coca-Cola 600.

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"He was manhandling the thing. That's tough for anybody," Gaunt said.

"It's pretty painful," Vickers agreed. "At a track this size and this speed, with this much load in the corners, you just do what you've got to do."

And what he did was hold on, turning the car on strength and willpower, fighting back after a cut tire and a nasty wobble seemed to knock him out of the running. He was there at the end when the leaders began dashing onto pit road for a few more drops of fuel, with enough juice in the tank to bring it home in fifth.

"He trains like all these drivers," Richert said. "When a situation like [Sunday night] comes about, that's where your training comes in. They're athletes in these cars. They have to have the endurance. That's what they work hard on doing."

If it was a breakthrough, it was a bittersweet one. Any joy over the team and the manufacturer's first top-five finish was tempered by the thought of what might have been had the power steering held out and the tire not gone down. It may seem hard to believe that an organization like Team Red Bull could be somewhat disappointed over a top-five finish, but that was clearly the case Sunday night.

"Definitely, yes," Richert said. "I feel like we had one of the cars, a car to beat. You have to plan out a lot of things. Everything's got to go the distance, and we had trouble with power steering [Sunday]. We've got to go back and find out what happened to the power steering so it doesn't happen again. Once we get these systems behind us, we're going to keep getting stronger and stronger as a team."

Vickers was more concise: "We definitely had the car to beat. We hands-down had the best car here [Sunday night], and we proved it every time we had a chance to lead."

But it won't do them any good come Friday at Dover International Speedway, where they'll be right back on the qualifying bubble again. Even with his fifth-place run Sunday, Vickers still stands 39th in owner points -- four spots out of a guaranteed qualifying berth, and once again forced to make the race on speed.

"Every week, we've still got to go to the racetrack and make it. It's so close," Gaunt said. "... Until we get into to the top 35, we've still got to come in with the same mentality: qualify, get in the show, and take it from there."