Red Bull becoming player in NASCAR

After a rough first season, the racing team had one of its best days on Sunday.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger both failed to make it to Victory Lane at Pocono Raceway. Still, there was an air of celebration around Red Bull Racing when the drivers completed the exhausting 500 miles of racing.

Vickers had finished second, and Allmendinger a career-best 12th for Red Bull’s most complete day of racing since its turbulent entry into NASCAR.

After a horrendous inaugural season of struggles that saw both drivers combine to miss 32 starts, Sunday’s showing proved the team is making slow but steady steps toward becoming a competitive player in NASCAR. The strong day capped a solid five-week run during which the Vickers team won the Pit Crew competition and Allmendinger scored his first stock-car victory by winning the non-points qualifying event before the All-Star race.

Then, developmental driver Scott Speed, shipped over to NASCAR after a disappointing Formula One run, added a Truck Series victory two weeks ago in Dover to the ARCA win he’d picked up weeks before.

“We’re kind of starting to get on a roll,” said general manager Jay Frye. “We had a good day [in Pocono]. Last week we had a pretty good week. But you’ve got to finish the deal, too, and finishing the deal is actually winning the race. We came closer to finishing the deal [at Pocono] than we ever have.

“We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re pointed in the right direction.”

That’s really all anyone can ask, after Red Bull’s electric entrance fell stunningly flat.

With unlimited financial resources, a partnership with Toyota and a reputation for throwing the best parties on the F1 circuit, Red Bull was supposed to take NASCAR by storm. Only one problem: The startup team didn’t have the infrastructure to support its grand plans, and quickly appeared to be nothing more than an organization with more style than substance.

When the checkered flag finally waved on the dismal first season, the relationship with Toyota was strained and Red Bull had wasted millions of dollars in looking cool while failing miserably.

On the sideline since Dale Earnhardt Inc. swallowed cash-strapped Ginn Racing last summer, Frye had the NASCAR knowledge Red Bull so desperately needed.

He immediately reorganized, then repaired the relationship with Toyota.

“The future should be very bright for this company,” Frye said. “We have three very good young drivers. We’ve got to continue to build an infrastructure to the company. We’ve got to continue to build the program, set them up to succeed. We have three under-26-year-old drivers who are all performing right now. That’s exciting.”