Spike
Team Owner
Now I must preface this by saying, just by proxy, Red Bull was my favorite team because my favorite driver is Brian Vickers. That said, like anyone who is a fan of a driver, they become attached to the team AND the manufacturer they drive for.
Learning those years ago that Red Bull would be pulling out of the sport hit me like a sack of bricks. They looked like they were finally putting it together as an organization. Quality rides were at a scare premium, what would happen to Vickers? What does this mean for Toyota/TRD? So many questions.
After pondering it, I have decided what I believe are the primary reasons for Red Bull's lack of success in NASCAR.
1. Lack of commitment. First and foremost. If you look at their product in F1, where they operate two teams, they are very successful. They made little headroads into R&D and aside from decent to good pit crews at times, they struggled to keep quality personnel.
2. Lack of innovation. This ties into #1. Looking at their F1 teams, they have a team that constructs new car bodies and tweaks the engines they receive from Renault. In NASCAR, they kind of just took whatever TRD/Triad gave them and ran with it.
3. They tried to lone wolf it. NASCAR is expensive. From equipment to transportation to tires, it takes alot of money to run a Sprint Cup team. However, outside of a few associate sponsorships on the C pillar(Mighty Autoparts, Walgreens, Kangaroo Express, a few others) they went all in by themselves. This is equally costly when you think about the fact that they were always a multi-car team.
4. Poor driver-development. They really had a very un-substantial driver development program. There were a few guys with upside, but they put little effort into their lower series efforts and usually just farmed out their developmental drivers to whomever happened to be running a Toyota and had an open seat available.
5. Fluctuations in the Cup lineup. Over the course of their stay in NASCAR, Vickers was only their constant name, and even he wasnt with them for the start. They let go of Allmendinger way too early and replaced him with Scott Speed and Mike Skinner. So instead of letting Vickers(23 in 2007) and Allmnendinger(25 in 2007) grow as a team, they barely raced together before letting the Dinger go. And after releasing him, they had little luck replacing him until Kasey Kahne came in on a one year basis.
All of these factors put together ran down what could have been built up to be a very competitive small team. Think about Truex, Jr. or Ambrose or someone of that caliber filling the other car opposite Brian Vickers. Or even if they had held onto Allmendinger. Think if they had put the money and effort into research and engineering that they do in their F1 efforts. This is a sad case of "what could have been", when a team that came in with deep pockets(and a desire to win/be competitive) which is rare in NASCAR in this day and age.
Learning those years ago that Red Bull would be pulling out of the sport hit me like a sack of bricks. They looked like they were finally putting it together as an organization. Quality rides were at a scare premium, what would happen to Vickers? What does this mean for Toyota/TRD? So many questions.
After pondering it, I have decided what I believe are the primary reasons for Red Bull's lack of success in NASCAR.
1. Lack of commitment. First and foremost. If you look at their product in F1, where they operate two teams, they are very successful. They made little headroads into R&D and aside from decent to good pit crews at times, they struggled to keep quality personnel.
2. Lack of innovation. This ties into #1. Looking at their F1 teams, they have a team that constructs new car bodies and tweaks the engines they receive from Renault. In NASCAR, they kind of just took whatever TRD/Triad gave them and ran with it.
3. They tried to lone wolf it. NASCAR is expensive. From equipment to transportation to tires, it takes alot of money to run a Sprint Cup team. However, outside of a few associate sponsorships on the C pillar(Mighty Autoparts, Walgreens, Kangaroo Express, a few others) they went all in by themselves. This is equally costly when you think about the fact that they were always a multi-car team.
4. Poor driver-development. They really had a very un-substantial driver development program. There were a few guys with upside, but they put little effort into their lower series efforts and usually just farmed out their developmental drivers to whomever happened to be running a Toyota and had an open seat available.
5. Fluctuations in the Cup lineup. Over the course of their stay in NASCAR, Vickers was only their constant name, and even he wasnt with them for the start. They let go of Allmendinger way too early and replaced him with Scott Speed and Mike Skinner. So instead of letting Vickers(23 in 2007) and Allmnendinger(25 in 2007) grow as a team, they barely raced together before letting the Dinger go. And after releasing him, they had little luck replacing him until Kasey Kahne came in on a one year basis.
All of these factors put together ran down what could have been built up to be a very competitive small team. Think about Truex, Jr. or Ambrose or someone of that caliber filling the other car opposite Brian Vickers. Or even if they had held onto Allmendinger. Think if they had put the money and effort into research and engineering that they do in their F1 efforts. This is a sad case of "what could have been", when a team that came in with deep pockets(and a desire to win/be competitive) which is rare in NASCAR in this day and age.
