FORD 300 Vickers becomes youngest champ in Busch Series

Brian Vickers, 20, placed 11th in the Ford 300 to clinch the points crown.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) -- Brian Vickers became NASCAR's youngest champion ever Saturday, claiming the Busch Series title with an 11th place finish behind first-time winner Kasey Kahne at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 20-year-old Vickers regained a lost lap to finish just out of the top 10 in the season-ending Ford 300, but that was enough to hold off 1995 series champion David Green.
The closest finish in the series came in 1992, when Joe Nemechek beat Bobby Labonte by three points.
"This is everything I've dreamed of and everything I've worked for my whole life," said Vickers, who will move up to the Nextel Cup series in 2004, the youngest full-time driver ever in NASCAR's top series.
The previous youngest driver to win a NASCAR championship was 21-year-old Rob Moroso, who took the Busch title in 1989.
Nearly pulled it out
Green, who started the day 22 points behind Vickers, nearly pulled it out despite losing three laps early in the race. He lost two laps when he cut down a tire running over debris from a wreck, and a third when he was penalized by NASCAR for coming directly into the pits without using the safety lane.
The 45-year-old veteran made up two of the laps with timely caution flags. He stayed on the track on two different occasions while other drivers pitted under green. He regained the lead lap under NASCAR's new rule giving a lap back to the first driver a lap down when a caution flag waves.
"Yeah, losing [the championship] by a couple of positions is hard to swallow," an emotional Green said. "But Brian is a great kid and a great star and a good champion."
Vickers was lapped by the leaders in the early going, but he, too, got the lap back under the new NASCAR rule.
The No. 5 Chevrolet that Vickers drives is fielded by Hendrick Motorsports, which joined Roush Racing and Richard Childress Racing as the only teams to have won championships in each of NASCAR's top three series -- Craftsman Trucks, Busch and what has been known as Winston Cup.
"I am just so proud to give Rick, Papa Joe and Ricky Hendrick their first Busch championship," Vickers said. "I wouldn't want to win this championship with anybody else."
Moves up next season
Vickers, who will also race for the same team in today's featured Ford 400 Cup race here, moves up to the Hendrick Cup team next season as teammate to four-time champion Jeff Gordon, two-time champion Terry Labonte and Jimmie Johnson.
The 23-year-old Kahne, also considered a top prospect and driving a Ford for Akins Motorsports, got his first win in his 54th Busch start. His best previous finish was second in August at Michigan.
He also struggled after an early pit stop, but took the lead for the first and only time 29 laps from the end of the 200-lap race on Homestead's reconfigured 11/2-mile oval -- rebuilt since last year from 6 degrees of banking to 20 degrees.
"I stopped early," Kahne said. "I thought I had a flat tire but it was really so much rubber built up on my tires that I never felt that. I messed up, but we got it back after that and pit strategy got us back in the front where we belong."
Beat Truex
He beat Martin Truex to the finish line by 0.59-seconds -- about five car-lengths.
Five drivers went into Saturday's race with a chance to win the championship.
Ron Hornaday Jr. finished 15th in the race and third in the standings, 46 points behind. Bobby Hamilton Jr. was third on Saturday and fourth in the points, 49 out.
Scott Riggs, who led the points several times during the season, was taken out in a first-lap accident and wound up sixth in the standings, 175 points behind Vickers and 66 behind teammate Jason Keller.