LAS VEGAS -- His job used to entail getting on the phone and asking for money, searching for funding for an organization that was running out of it. He used to worry about whether or not he'd be able to make payroll. Near the end, he had to walk down to the shop floor, face men and women he had shared hopes and expectations with, and tell many of them that they no longer had jobs.

No wonder Jay Frye feels refreshed, and looks forward to going to work every day. These days, as general manager and vice president of Red Bull Racing, his biggest concerns involve whether his two cars can make a race. There are no more worries about whether he'll have adequate funding, if any at all. There are no more worries about losing primary sponsorship. And there are no worries that his team will suddenly evaporate from underneath him, as happened last year when Frye was general manager and minority owner of Ginn Racing.

"You come to work every day to get better, as opposed to, what are we going to do to survive that day? It's a whole different deal," Frye said inside a Red Bull hauler Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "The first couple of weeks it was kind of like, it's OK -- we can make this work. Every time you start something new, there are always these hidden doors you're not aware of. Well, this gets better every day."

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Jay Frye

At Red Bull, Frye takes over day-to-day operations of a two-car organization that failed to make 32 races in its debut season last year. Both Red Bull cars still have yet to make the starting field at the same time in 2008; after failing to make the Daytona 500 and never getting the chance at California because of rain, A.J. Allmendinger was the last driver knocked out Friday in qualifying for the UAW-Dodge 400. But there have been small signs of progress, notably a pair of top-12 finishes to start this season by Vickers, who had only five of them all last year.

What a coincidence that these strides coincide with the arrival of Frye, a former football player at the University of Missouri who brought 16 years of racing experience to a team whose inexperience showed glaringly at times last year. Red Bull was seen as the team that had the cool hospitality facility and threw the best parties, but was often out of its depth on the racetrack. Frye brings a certain degree of substance to a team that beforehand had only been known for its style.

As soon as he took the job, Frye saw the hurdles -- too much emphasis on getting inside the top 35, too many mechanical basics left uncovered. Vickers said the team didn't have notes, didn't have telemetry, didn't have test data, all tools that established teams use with regularity. They were so green, Vickers added, they didn't figure out how to use tire data until this year. How did they figure setups? "At a lot of places, it was a complete guess," he said. Enter Frye, who saw a team with plenty of engineering capabilities, but lacking the basics needed to use them.

"We have to block and tackle," he said. "We have all this great engineering stuff, and it's a very engineering-driven company, and it's all very good. But if you don't do this right, you're never going to get to that. You're never going to be able to use these great resources we have engineering-wise. That's what I tried to bring in, just the day-to-day blocking and tackling, getting the basics right. If you have the slickest car in the world, the best aerodynamic numbers, and a bolt breaks, it doesn't matter how slick your car is or how good your wind tunnel numbers were. You've got to make sure you've got that stuff right. That's really what I've tried to do. It's not starting over, it's just kind of redirecting some of our energy in a different direction."

And then there's the issue of getting in the top 35 in owner points and receiving a guaranteed starting berth, something the Red Bull cars weren't able to do last year. Vickers, now 11th in points, is in position to break that barrier when 2008 points go into effect in three weeks. But Frye wants the organization to aim higher.

"The company as a whole, all people talked about the first couple of weeks was the top 35. Got to get in the top 35," he said. "I'm like, stop. We have to stop thinking about being in the top 35. That's not a goal. If you go do X,Y and Z, you'll be in the top 35. It will take care of itself. Do the things you're supposed to do, the top 35 is a non-issue. You won't even think about it. You try to change the mindset. We're not racing to be in the top 35, we're racing to win races."

At MB2 Motorsports and later Ginn Racing, Frye oversaw organizations that always seemed to overachieve despite their position below the superteams that dominate the sport. MB2 won a race with Johnny Benson in 2002, and Mark Martin nearly won the Daytona 500 last season. Now he's trying to elevate Red Bull, which is both owned and sponsored by the Austrian energy-drink company of the same name. Vickers, for one, likes what he sees.

"He's definitely brought a lot of experience," he said. "He's all about the basics, and that's what we were missing last year. We were trying to reinvent the wheel, and we didn't have the wheel rolling yet. He's brought a lot of stability and confidence to the whole organization. He's a great leader, very motivational. This is the first time I've ever had an opportunity to work with him, but I've been very, very impressed. I'd say the biggest thing is to recognize that we need to go back to basics and build a solid team. We need to go run at least what [other teams] are running to be competitive before we try to run something better. That wasn't the philosophy last year."

To Frye, there are plenty of positive indicators. He liked the muted, almost workmanlike response he saw from Vickers' team after their driver finished 11th on Monday at Auto Club Speedway. He calls Vickers' run in the Daytona 500 -- where the driver spun in a qualifying race, rebounded to make the main event, lost a lap early in the 500, got it back, and finished 12th -- as "almost a defining moment in this company's history." If Vickers never makes it out of the qualifying race, "this thing starts all over again," he said.

And he didn't want to go there, not after all the professional trials he endured last year as the promising shop that had been Ginn Racing fell apart. Even though he had an ownership stake in the team, the eventual collapse -- an absorption by Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- came as a surprise. Months earlier principal owner Bobby Ginn had been talking big, about going after Dale Earnhardt Jr. and expanding the shop and running with the big boys. It never happened. The sponsorship money dried up, and Ginn cut his losses.

Frye took a vacation with his family during an off weekend last July, and returned to the news that the team was being sold to DEI. It was left to the big, amicable former football player to do the dirty work and tell people they no longer had jobs. It was a scarring experience.

"It was devastating. It was bad. I can't sugar-coat it," he said. "And part of the reason was, it happened so quickly. A year ago, we had made an announcement that finally, we were going to be able to take this thing to the next level -- I thought. I was like, yes. And then a year later, it's over. Just that quick. It ended really in a week."

He could have gone to DEI, could have called on his mentor Rick Hendrick, but liked what he saw in Red Bull. Yes, there were performance issues last year. But he thought they were correctable. He knew the sponsor wouldn't bail on him. He liked the promise of Toyota. And he embraces the challenge of bringing respect to Red Bull the only way possible in this sport -- by running well.

"My biggest goal for the company is respect," Frye said. "I want to earn respect, the respect of the competitors and the respect of each other. I'm very proud of the Red Bull logo. I'm very proud to be a part of this company. If you're performing, that's where the respect comes from. That's my goal."