BRISTOL, Tenn. -- One sat comfortably at the front of the Bristol Motor Speedway media center Friday, dishing about his new black-and-blue hair. The other fidgeted in the same spotlight and more or less came across as the polar opposite, but insisted that he, too, was happy to be here.

So it was that Scott Speed and Paul Menard, respectively, made their debuts in the Cup Series top 12 driver media availability sessions. Prior to each race, the top 12 drivers in points are paraded before the inquiring minds of reporters, who pepper them with questions.

“

We've come out of the box pretty strong and we're working on a lot of things to make the cars even better so we can hopefully improve throughout the year.

”

-- PAUL MENARD

It can grow tiresome, say, for guys like Tony Stewart -- who sure acted like he was weary of it during his session Friday at Bristol (watch video). But for guys like Speed and Menard -- young drivers who have struggled to find success in NASCAR's top series -- it serves as a form of validation that they are making progress in the right direction.

"Obviously the start of the season is going pretty well, considering where we are sitting in points," said Speed, who enters Sunday's Food City 500 tied with four-time champion Jeff Gordon for 11th in the standings. "I think it's a little bit more than all of us expected."

Menard, who is ninth in the current standings, added: "I could definitely get used to this. It's only four races in, so a lot can happen obviously. But we've had fast cars."

The often flamboyant Speed arrived for his media availability session -- the first of the day Friday morning -- sporting some interesting spiked hair. New black-and-blue spiked hair. Naturally, he was asked why he dyed it.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with racing, like most things in my life, I guess," said Speed, driver of the No. 82 Toyota for Red Bull Racing. "It was just one of those things where I was sort of bored, looking in the mirror.

"I had always done different stuff with my hair. I had a Mohawk at one time; I bleached it all platinum white at one time. But I had gone about a year and a half -- I would say since I got married, honestly -- without doing anything. I had sort of lost the drive to fix myself."

So he reached out and asked the public what he should do with his hair. (Continued)