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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Red Bull Ready For Spooky Weekend
Brian Vickers gave Red Bull Racing its first Sprint Cup victory earlier this season...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 29, 2009   Talladega, AL
Brian Vickers will not race this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway - last weekend Vickers was replaced by his close friend Casey Mears. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Win, lose or draw, there’s probably no team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage that epitomizes fun more than the bunch from Red Bull Racing.

Red Bull teammates Brian Vickers and Scott Speed have participated in all sorts of interesting and sometimes bizarre off-track activities, everything from skydiving and watching the launch of the space shuttle to flying in stunt planes and piloting a Korean-war era seaplane onto Lake Norman, north of Charlotte.

And how many other NASCAR drivers have ever credited winning a race to painting their toenails blue, something Speed did after winning a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Dover last year? It’s probably a very short list.

So it’s hardly surprising that Vickers and Speed are looking forward to spending their Halloween weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, the longest oval on the NASCAR circuit and the place where the fun never stops in the infield.

And this time out, the Red Bull boys intend to have some fun with the spirit of the weekend.

“We like to embrace the Halloween spirit,” said Speed. “We look forward to trick-or-treaters at Talladega. What a great place to have Halloween this year.”

Vickers, meanwhile is holding his holiday plans close to the vest. “Dracula was my favorite Halloween costume as a child,” he said. “I’m not sure if I’m going to dress up this year. I’m sure the Talladega infield will be pretty interesting on Halloween night, though. I guess I could go undercover wearing a mask to see what all is going on ... you never know!”

Oh, yeah, there’s the racing, too.

It was here three years ago that Vickers won his first Sprint Cup race and in controversial fashion. Driving for Hendrick Motorsports at the time, he was running third on the last lap when he moved out on the backstretch to pass and made contact with his then-teammate Jimmie Johnson, who was in second. Johnson slid into leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the two of them went into the infield at the entrance of Turn 3, while Vickers drove on to victory, a triumph that earned a hail of beer cans over the catch fence from the thousands of Earnhardt fans in the grandstands.

Move ahead to 2009 and Vickers is in need of another strong run. Although he won at Michigan earlier this season giving Red Bull its first Sprint Cup victory and he qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup — a first for both Vickers and Red Bull — lately things have been a struggle.

Vickers is 12th in points, the final spot among Chasers, and is coming off his best Chase finish, an 11th at Martinsville. He’s hoping for better this weekend at Talladega.

“The track’s treated me well and treated this team well,” Vickers said. “We’re excited to go back, but it’s still Talladega. You can’t let your guard down. A lot of things can happen there that are out of your control. You just do your part the best you can and hope the rest of it avoids you.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to



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