Vickers

Sometimes writing diaries like this one for ESPN.com can be a challenge, especially when you think you have nothing of any substance to convey to the readers. Fortunately for me, and lucky for the readers, there's been no shortage of material to talk about this season.

The last two months have been incredible and it seems like things get better and better with each passing week. It's all been like a dream for me -- I just hope I don't have to wake up.

Just a few weeks after making the announcement I was moving up to drive the No. 25 GMAC Financial Services Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series in 2004, I found out I was going to drive the last four races of this season in the No. 25 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, while finishing out the year in the Busch Series as well.

At that point, you could have knocked me over with a feather, with everything that was going on. Not to mention, we're in the middle of the closest points battle ever in the Busch Series.

Who would have thought we'd lead the points, especially after finishing 42nd at Daytona in February. It was a bad start, but I think it says a lot about our team and the never-give-up attitude that we have. Even when things were bad, everyone on this team supported one another and now we've got things steered in the right direction.

Our GMAC team has already won three races in 2003 and probably should have won a couple more along the road. If NASCAR only awarded points for the "almost" or "could have" races, we'd be in good shape. If NASCAR is reviewing the points system, maybe they could award bonus markers for the "could have" or "should have" races. Maybe the standings might have a different look to them if that were the case.

I'm not complaining, though. I think it's great for the sport to have five very competitive teams fighting down to the wire for the championship. With three races remaining and the point standings as close as they are, it's conceivable for the leader to fall to fourth or fifth place with a poor showing in a race. Believe me, I know.

We had a poor showing on the Busch Series side of things in Atlanta and we lost the lead in the points. As a matter of fact, we fell from first to fifth. It sounds worse than it is because we're only 49 points back heading to Phoenix.

	Vickers has three Busch wins this season.

After winning at Dover in September, we captured the points lead only to have it slip away from us one race later at Kansas when we finished 32nd. Two races later we were atop the standings again following the race at Memphis.

Saturday's Busch Series race in Atlanta was just one of those races you would like to forget. As a matter of fact, the whole weekend, with the exception of Friday, turned out to be less than stellar.

I turned 20 on Friday in Atlanta and I had a really great birthday, especially on the track. We qualified fifth for the Busch race and later that night, our UAW-Delphi team qualified fourth for Sunday's Winston Cup race. I have to admit I was pretty excited with the way everything turned out for qualifying. I think we surprised a lot of people with our qualifying effort on the Winston Cup side of things.

So far, it's been a lot of fun running both cars and I believe it's helping me, not hurting me like some people may think. How can getting twice as much track time be a problem? Going back and forth has also helped to keep me from thinking about the Busch Series championship too much. After Saturday's race, I didn't have any problems forgetting about it. The only problem I had was the fact that we didn't run like we are capable of or like we expected to.

Saturday just was not our day. Once things started to go wrong, they kept going wrong for us -- everything just snowballed. Hank Parker decided to make it three-wide right away and got into us. There was no reason for it. He's not racing for a championship. Then, we had a tire blow. Just a bad day from start to finish. Finishing 31st didn't help us any in the points, that's for sure. It seems like whoever is leading the points is jinxed, race after race. We're not out of it by any means. Forty-nine points is nothing to make up with three races to go.

One of the great things about pulling double-duty is that when you don't have the greatest of days on Saturday, you get another shot at redemption on Sunday. Unfortunately, our Sunday didn't turn out to be much better. Early in the race, on a restart, I got into the back of Bill Elliott after leader Ryan Newman checked up or missed a shift. Everyone else got on the brakes, but I had gotten a good restart and was coming up to speed quickly and couldn't get the No. 25 Chevrolet slowed down in time. The contact damaged our front grill and eventually put us behind the wall with some engine problems.

It was disappointing, but running these last few Winston Cup races is all about me getting some seat time and getting a jumpstart on next season with my new team. Communication is so important in racing today that every opportunity to take advantage of establishing those lines of communication needs to be taken advantage of.

My main focus is still winning the Busch Series championship, while getting good experience with the No. 25 Cup team. I just hope we can bring home that first Busch Series title for Hendrick Motorsports.

Brian Vickers drives the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 GMAC Financial Services Chevrolet in the NASCAR Busch Series and the No. 25 UAW-Delphi Chevrolet in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. He is providing a monthly diary to ESPN.com throughout the 2003 NASCAR season. Vickers' personal Web site can be found at www.brianvickers.com or go to www.hendrickmotorsports.com for team information