Brian Vickers was in Somerset making an appearance for the Somerset Patriots minor league baseball team, Mike Ashmore of the Hunterdon County Democrat asked Vickers some questions:
About Toyota coming into the sport: “I think it’s great. The more support we have from the more manufacturers, the better. It’s irrelevant who it is. With NASCAR, I guess one of the rules is they have to produce the cars they race in Cup in America, which Toyota does. Those are the requirements, that they make most of their cars in America. You’ve got Chevy, Ford, Dodge and now Toyota, and it’s only going to bring more attention to the sport. If more want to come, I think it’ll be even better.”
About backlash from the NASCAR fanbase about Toyota’s foreign roots: “There’s no way to predict that, but I don’t think so. You look in the parking lot at a race or anywhere else, and there’s cars from every manufacturer. There’s always been a lot of support in NASCAR from the big three manufacturers, and everybody’s always going to respect that. But the fact is, Toyota employs a lot of people here, and if they want to be here, they deserve to be here.”
About Red Bull and Yates Rumors: “Who we’ve talked to is private. We’re in the process right now…the only thing that’s going on is Hendrick Motorsports and I are trying to figure out what we’re going to do, and right now it looks like we’re both going to look at other options next year for the betterment of both of us.”
About a hot commodity: “It could potentially be a good position. Right now, we’re focused on handling this thing the best we can with Hendrick Motorsports and we’re looking at other options. What we decide to do is going to be held private until the time is right, and then we’ll announce it.”(Hunterdon County Democrat/Mike Ashmore)(6-9-2006)
