Patience pays off: Speed's slow climb finally nears top (cont'd)

And now comes the payoff. Speed was scheduled to attempt to make his Sprint Cup debut in a third Red Bull car this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, but persistent rain Thursday left his team on the outside when the starting field was set on points. So instead his focus will turn to next weekend and tiny Martinsville Speedway, where he will take over the team's No. 84 car for the remainder of the season -- and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, into 2009. He's been patient this long; what's one more week?

Head2Head

Scott Speed is in a Cup Series ride at Red Bull; A.J. Allmendinger is out. Are team owners firing new drivers too quickly?

• Read, then weigh in

"I've always known there will be a Cup opportunity since before I came over here," he said Friday. "I have that relationship with Red Bull where they say, 'We'll give you an opportunity, let's try to make it best we can.' Whether it was one year or two years, I'm here learning anyway. It doesn't matter if I'm learning in a truck or a Cup car. I think I've had the luxury of having achieved already the biggest goal of my life, Formula One. I can step back and say, you know, I don't have to have an ego, I don't need to go in and prove anything. I'm having plenty of fun racing ARCA and trucks. No problem, I can keep doing it. It's just a situation has come up in a good way where we can get into a good car. It's having the ability to take our time and make good decisions that I think has made us as successful as we have been over here."

Thus far, it's been difficult to argue with the results. Unlike so many of his former open-wheel counterparts, Speed hasn't been thrown into NASCAR's top division with only a handful of preparatory starts at lower levels. It's been a relatively deliberative progression for Speed, beginning with an ARCA debut last season, and graduating to 20 ARCA and seven Truck races this year. Speed leads the ARCA standings, and earned a Truck victory in June at Dover in just his sixth career start. Then came the head-turning moment last month, when Speed was second-fastest in each of the two Sprint Cup test sessions on the Charlotte track.

Labbe said Speed was third- and fourth-fastest, respectively, in two Goodyear tests involving 14 drivers at Indianapolis earlier this week. Speed seems to be comfortable with the stiff characteristics of the new Sprint Cup car, which remind him somewhat of his old ride in Formula One. "I feel like I feel the car a bit more," he said. "I feel more comfortable in what I feel and what I want to change as opposed to the old Cup cars, the ones I'm racing in ARCA."

Labbe, who's been on the radio with Speed during the roughly 30 tests the Red Bull driver has participated in this season, has seen it. "I just think he doesn't know any different," he said. "Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been running the old car. Matt Kenseth, all those people have been running the old car, and Scott just doesn't know. If you think about an F1 car, it doesn't travel. The suspension doesn't travel. The [new Sprint Cup car], it doesn't travel much, either. A lot of these other guys are used to seven inches of wheel travel, where the [new car] is two and a half. With F1, it's an inch and half of wheel travel. It's a big difference, but Scott just doesn't know any different. He makes it work."

He has plenty of help -- Labbe showing him the ropes and the tricks of his new NASCAR environment, Randy Cox and the rest of the Red Bull R&D team shepherding him through tests, and Jimmy Elledge, who'll become Speed's crew chief when the driver officially moves to the No. 84 car next week at Martinsville. He's working with a group of engineers who help him improve the car using methods and systems not too dissimilar from what he was accustomed to in F1. He's shown promising strength in testing. Is it all enough to make more accomplished drivers think he can hold his own in the big show?

"Not yet," said four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. "I haven't seen enough from Joey Logano either, and he's won Nationwide races. Not taking anything away from those guys, but you're asking me a question I can't really answer until I see them in a Cup car in a race. Certainly guys like that have been very impressive in other series. I love the Truck Series, love to watch it. But to compete at the Cup level, you've got to run in the Nationwide Series consistently, and be competitive consistently in order to make enough of an impression that I think you're going to be able to hold your own in the Cup Series."

For Speed, the only way to find out is to get right in the middle of it. "Could I have gone right into Cup from Formula One like Juan [Montoya]? I think I could have, and not looked stupid," he said. "But having all the experience I have, I'm going to be better now. And if I had another year of Trucks before I did it, I'd still be better again. But it's one of thing where the learning curve in Cup will be better. I will learn more and quicker. At this point, it's a good situation to come into. The team's improved a lot, I have, it fits."

And as for the style? It's part of the package. Just as long as people realize there's some substance underneath.

"I remember the first day I met him, me, [team VP] Jay Frye and Scott met for lunch one day, and I was like, whoa, this guy is kind of out there," Labbe said. "But I made myself realize, it doesn't matter what I wear or what he wears, as long as when you come to work you get the job done. Scott gets into a racecar, he's up to speed, he's very attuned to it, and he drives hard. Outside the car, he's just himself. Some people struggle with the clothes he wears and stuff. But I'm sure if we went to Monaco dressed like we are, we'd be the outcasts. He's toned it down to kind of blend in a little bit. But it's just clothes, man. It's just clothes."