SPEEDY TRANSITION

Californian Scott Speed cemented himself as a promising young NASCAR driver with an impressive 2008 season only months removed from racing across the world in Formula One.

With Red Bull Racing Team guiding Speed through his first season in stock cars - cars unlike anything he'd ever driven before - he took ARCA by storm and was a fixture at the front in the Camping World Truck Series. He drove to four ARCA victories and a series-leading 17 top 10s. On the truck side, he earned his first victory at Dover in only his sixth start and ended the season with eight top-15 finishes in his final 10 races.

It was enough to secure Speed a seat for the 2009 Sprint Cup season, where he's battling for rookie of the year in the No. 82 Red Bull Toyota. He'll also run a partial Nationwide Series schedule in the No. 99 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota.

ACHIEVING F1 STATUS

After dominating the karting ranks for eight years, Speed stepped up to open-wheel racing in 2001 and won the Formula Russell title in his first try. In 2002, he continued the climb, competing in the Skip Barber National Championship and Star Mazda.

That same year, Red Bull launched the Red Bull Driver Search - aimed at putting a United States-born driver in Formula One. Speed, at a still-green 19, won the competition and crossed the pond for British Formula 3, but fell ill with ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, and was forced to return to the U.S. for treatment.

In 2004, he won the German Formula Renault and Eurocup championships. GP2 came calling a year later. Podium finishes were the norm, and Speed ended up third in the GP2 championship. He got a taste of Formula One, too, running a third car for Red Bull Racing in the North American swing through Montreal and Indianapolis.

Speed became the first American in Formula One since Michael Andretti in 1993, and Red Bull gave him one of two full-time seats on its sister team - Scuderia Toro Rosso - for the 2006 season. He flirted with points finishes a few times but never scored.

The 2007 season was largely disappointing, punctuated by a mutual parting of the ways with the team. After seven races, Speed was released from his contract at Scuderia Toro Rosso. His relationship with Red Bull, however, remained strong, and Speed turned his attention to landing a seat in the States.

He did for the October ARCA race at Talladega, starting seventh and finishing seventh in his first stock car race.

LIFE OF A RED BULL ATHLETE

"Red Bull is in my blood," Speed has said. He's eccentric, speaks what's on his mind, has experienced countless cultures and prides himself on being an individual. Few can rival his fashion sense, too.

He's constantly on the move. In 2008, he rode a mechanical bull in Texas, attended the Red Bull Air Race World Series event in Detroit, the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix MotoGP race in Indianapolis and judged a Red Bull Flugtag event in Tampa, Fla.

Hardly ever is he found without his iPhone or U2-packed iPod. At 25 years old, he still loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and M&Ms. He enjoys watching the ruthlessness of Al Pacino in "Scarface." Out of the car, Speed climbs rocks, rides bicycles and plays a mean game of golf.

Scott Speed speaks out:

Q. How's the whole career change thing going?
I have more confidence with what I'm feeling and the changes I would want to call out if I was in the middle of the race. From the first time I got in the car, it's not hard to go fast. My biggest thing is I'm going to be learning, needing time in the car to know what the car feels like, how it should feel in practice and how that translates into the race, to drive the car loose in the opening laps and feel how it gets tighter and how that changes from circuit to circuit.

Q. Do you ever envision yourself doing anything else?
Golf. I wouldn't be great at anything other than racing, and maybe golf if I really worked at it. I would want to be the best at what I did.

Q. How is the golf game?
Not bad, actually. The Charlotte area affords a lot of opportunities to play.

Q. What is the neighbors' reaction when you tell them you drive race cars for a living?
My neighbors in Austria, they were all my biggest fans. I can relate with them, and I think they have fun telling me what they heard on the news. One of my neighbors came up to me and was like, 'Dude, I saw this crazy clip of you on the news. It looked like you were yelling at somebody. I was laughing to myself. I was like, 'Yeah, that's my neighbor!' I get that stuff sometimes.

Q. You and Red Bull go back a long way. What is it that makes you so Red Bull?
Red Bull has always encouraged me to be myself, to let my personality come out. I'm very honest. I say what I think. I do have a personality, and Red Bull lets me completely be myself and doesn't put any restrictions on me. It's such an awesome working experience, such a great situation. I'm super happy to carry this relationship further because everyone at Red Bull has been so faithful to me and so supportive.

Q. Are you tight with any other Red Bull athletes?
I know a lot of the international guys, most of the guys in Europe. In Austria, I lived right next to Red Bull and a lot of the guys came through there.

Q. The premier perk of being a Red Bull athlete is?
If I had free time to go, say, surfing or skiing, you have easy contact to the people who do that for a living and do it at the highest level.

Q. Scott Speed's driving style in one word.
I always had a very methodical approach to driving. I didn't really deal with a lot of emotion or aggression. I was very methodical about the decisions I made on the track. I think methodical would be the best way to describe it.