Speed may not be rushing, but could find himself in Sprint Cup

Scott Speed could find himself in the driver's seat for Red Bull next season. Getty Images

Sitting in the Bill Davis Racing transporter Saturday afternoon, two hours before driving in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas, Scott Speed reiterated that he's in no rush to get into Sprint Cup.

"Definitely the longer I wait to get into a Cup car, the better I'll be," the ex-Formula One driver explained.

It certainly appears that he'll be in Cup sooner rather than later. Red Bull Racing announced in a media release Tuesday morning that A.J. Allmendinger would not be returning in 2009. Speed, supported by the energy drink since 2002, is the logical replacement. There has been speculation that he could move into the No. 84 car for a handful of races this year.

"I haven't heard anything about it, no," Speed said at Las Vegas. "We haven't decided [where to race in 2009]. Everything is open and possible and I'm sure we'll make a good decision. It depends on the circumstances."

And if Red Bull offers him the No. 84? Does Speed feel ready for Cup?

"Every decision made by Red Bull has been the right one for my career," Speed said. "I trust them. If they think I'm ready to race in Cup, then they're probably right."

Speed is testing Red Bull's No. 82 Cup car Tuesday and Wednesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He's previously tested for two-days each at Nashville and Kentucky. Lowe's will be his first time on a Cup track amid a full field of Cup regulars. It could be Speed's final trial run before a Cup debut at Lowe's on Oct. 11. Or, it could be just another opportunity for him to gain experience, which is how Speed is approaching the test.

"We're working toward a goal [of Cup]," he said about why he's testing.

Speed was a member of the open-wheel invasion in NASCAR this year and the only one in the group who didn't leap straight into Cup. He wanted to start in the minor leagues while making the transition from Formula 1, which races 1,100-pound, single-seater, 800-horsepower cars strictly on road courses, to stock cars that weigh three times as much and run almost exclusively on ovals.

"After one week of racing a Cup car, I could have done it and not looked silly," Speed said, "but I wouldn't be as good as I need to be. There's so much to learn how to race, things you have to learn before you get to Cup."

Speed signed on for ARCA, which runs the old-style Cup cars and is a preliminary event for some of the Cup races. But ARCA, stock car's equivalent of single-A baseball, also runs two races on dirt and on short tracks like 7/16th-mile Berlin Raceway in Marne, Mich., and .555-mile Salem (Ind.) Raceway.

In March, with Red Bull sponsorship, Speed moved up to double-A by adding a limited Truck schedule. It is a series full of experienced and skilled drivers, some who have been in Cup, some who are headed to Cup and some who drive regularly in Cup, including Kyle Busch. Carl Edwards made the jump directly from Trucks to Cup with almost immediate success.

Speed has four wins in ARCA and is the points leader with three races remaining. He's been impressive in the Trucks, too. He finished second at Martinsville in his second start, eighth at Kansas in his third and won at Dover in his sixth.

"I've adapted a lot faster than myself or a lot of people expected," Speed said. "But I've been with good teams and had good cars. That's why I went into ARCA (with Eddie Sharp Racing). I had a good team in a lower series rather than a midpack team in Nationwide, where I would have struggled. We took our time and made a real good decision.

"I'm driving fast a lot easier than I expected and tuning the cars has been more difficult. To know how to set up the car good for the race takes experience that might not show up right away. The experience has to come every week and I learn a fair amount every week."

Speed won partially on team strategy at Dover, using a two-tire stop to get into the lead and then held it for the final 51 laps.

"I did what I could do, but it was the team that won that one, " Speed said in the post-race conference.

Speed regards two third places -- at Michigan and Bristol -- in races after Dover as more satisfying and more significant successes than Dover.

"I'm certainly a lot better driver than I was when I won at Dover," Speed said at Las Vegas. "At Michigan and Bristol, I feel my truck was equal to the guys at the front. I had a strong truck."

The 25-year-old from Manteca, Calif., achieved his dream by reaching F1 for 28 races with Toro Rosso in 2006-07. The former Minardi team had been one of the worst funded and running teams in F1 before Red Bull purchased it prior to the 2006 season. The team has made vast improvements and driver Sebastian Vettel drove it to victory in the Italian Grand Prix on Sept. 15.

"Toro Rosso has been getting bigger and better and it was great to see them win," Speed said. "I've been close with Vettel for a while and it was great to see a fellow Red Bull guy doing well."

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz had sold 50 percent of Toro Rosso to former F1 driver Gerhard Berger, who was running the team and decided to release Speed and replace him with Vettel. Mateschitz decided to continue his support of Speed, who said he wanted to take on the challenge of NASCAR. Speed made his stock car debut almost a year ago in the ARCA race at Talladega, finishing seventh.

It has not been a good year for the open-wheel drivers who plunged into Cup. Dario Franchitti was injured in a Nationwide race, ran only 10 in Cup before his team shut down and has signed to return to the IndyCar Series next year. Sam Hornish Jr. struggles to stay in the top-35 in owner points. Patrick Carpentier doesn't have a job for 2009. Jacques Villeneuve didn't make it to a race, failing to make the Daytona 500, followed by his team shutting down.

Speed made two choices when he departed F1. The first was to pursue NASCAR, the second to start near the bottom and work his way up. Both were wise choices. When he gets to Cup, he won't be an open wheeler any more. He'll be a stock car driver.