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.

"I actually got on Twitter and asked what people thought about me dyeing my hair black and blue for Bristol," Speed said. "I thought if I got enough people to say yes, then I might do it."

What happened next surprised even him.

"I got more responses for that than I have ever for anything else I've posted on there. Everyone said I should do it," he said. "Amanda [Speed's wife] hated it and she didn't want me to do it, so I said, 'Look, babe, this is what the people want. Sorry.' It kind of gave me the ammunition or the confidence to do it without causing too much problems at home."

“

Listen, we're going to make mistakes, there's no question. I think it's not exactly super realistic that we're going to stay here [in the top 12] for very long -- but it certainly shows how much progress we've made, and we've still got more to make.

”

-- SCOTT SPEED

His hair wasn't all that Speed discussed Friday morning. He admitted he isn't all that confident about remaining in the top 12 the entire season, or even for another couple weeks, but added that he's very pleased with how his season has gone so far. Last year, his first full-time season in the Cup Series after driving in Formula One, the ARCA stock-car series and briefly in the Truck Series, Speed finished 35th in points.

"It's a long season, for sure," Speed said. "It certainly is nice to be up in the points and to be running well. It's nice to represent my friends at Toyota here in the top 12. It feels good for everyone, mostly because we've come a long way and we can see how much progress we've made since we started.

"If we stay up here in the top 12 or if we fall back some in the points, the key is looking one year out and that it's still learning experiences. Listen, we're going to make mistakes, there's no question. I think it's not exactly super realistic that we're going to stay here [in the top 12] for very long -- but it certainly shows how much progress we've made, and we've still got more to make."

During his media session, the more conservative Menard didn't discuss his hair or even his Elvis-like sideburns, which until he cracked the top 10 in points were without a doubt his most distinguishable feature as a driver. In fact, Menard admitted he isn't even a fan of the social networking tool that Speed used to determine his weekend hair color(s).

"That's not my style. I'm not even on Twitter," said Menard, driver of the No. 98 Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports. "It's something we've talked about because social networking is getting pretty big -- but I'm a pretty private guy and I like to keep my stuff to myself."

Asked if that meant he isn't willing to reconsider his anti-social networking stance, Menard chuckled and replied as he looked at his public-relations assistant. "Well, we talked about it a few months ago and haven't talked about it since, so I might have made my point clear," he said.

Now in his fourth full Cup season, Menard finished 34th, 26th and 31st, respectively, in his first three. He is coming off a fifth-place finish in the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta on March 7, which was only his second career top-five and his first since 2008.

"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," Menard said.

Fellow driver Denny Hamlin admitted he was as surprised as anyone to find Speed and Menard in the top 12 heading into Sunday's race. But he said both have shown visibly noticeable signs of improvement during the early part of this season.

"It's surprising, for sure. Those guys have just gone on a string of really consistent runs," Hamlin said. "I came in with Paul in the Nationwide Series, so I've seen his development. He's gotten a lot better, and he's obviously with a really good team and all.

"And Scott, that speaks for itself. He was struggling to stay in the top 35 last year, and now he's really doing well on a weekly basis. It's just that some drivers, once they find their comfort level and they get a couple good runs in, they can search for that feel at just about every race track we go to. That's why you're seeing them run well."

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