The Passion of the Vickers

So, Brian Vickers. Here we are, last race of the season. The last time you'll take the track as a member of Hendrick Motorsports. Thing is, though, Brian, it seems like it's been a while since you've really been a member of the team at all. Oh, they promised you big things, Brian, they promised you good equipment and top-5 finishes and the love and devotion of thousands, no, millions of freckled blonde Southern girls with big brown eyes and accents that sprawl like the green fields of your native Carolinas. What happened to those things, Brian? When your friend Ricky died on that Virginia mountainside, your pain was open and infinite - but why was it that after he was gone, you were the one that was forgotten? Gordon and Johnson and even Busch were given what they needed to win - why weren't you? And after you did the prudent and honorable thing by announcing that you were heading for greener pastures, why did they lock you out of those meetings? Why did they leave you at the airport where in the past, you would have traveled in their planes? Why did Jeff Gordon feel like he could dictate when you could and could not race him hard, for position? You don't have four championships; you're a young man still trying to make a name for himself. Why does he get to tell you what to do? And why does Chad Knaus get to humiliate you on national television for trying to help the 48 execute a risky maneuver at Talladega? It doesn't seem fair to us, Brian. And we know that it doesn't seem fair to you.

Well, Brian, this Sunday, there's something you can do about it, isn't there? And you know what that something is, don't you? Oh, sure, Johnson will weep and curse, but in the end, he will grasp the justice of it all. And you'll go on TV and say hey, it wasn't intentional. Took the air off his car, was what happened. Or use Gordon's own "didn't know he was there" defense. Hell, just one of them racin' deals. And you will smile and look contrite for the cameras, but their Golden Boy Johnson and their prima donna Gordon - they will know. And they will know that it was their own doing. And in February, when you take the track on the sacred asphalt of Daytona in your shiny new Toyota, they will finally respect you. Oderint dum metuant, Brian. Let them hate as long as they fear. Do it, Brian Vickers. You and your strawberry-scented race car. Your cause is as just as any that ever has existed.