BROOKLYN, Mich. -- It's the kind of scenario sure to start the wheels spinning inside a conspiracy theorist's head: a top-flight driver piloting a certain type of car for one season, before moving on to that manufacturer's biggest rival. And yet, Toyota sees no negatives in having Kasey Kahne -- who will be under contract with Hendrick Motorsports, and bound for that Chevrolet organization in 2012 -- behind the wheel of a Camry next year.

Kahne, in his final Cup Series campaign with Richard Petty Motorsports, will drive for Toyota-powered Red Bull for a single season before taking over Mark Martin's No. 5 car at Hendrick in 2012. But even though they share the same manufacturer, the Red Bull and Joe Gibbs Racing programs are different enough that Kahne shouldn't be able to learn anything that would give him a competitive edge on the likes of Denny Hamlin or Kyle Busch once he gets into a Chevrolet.

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Honestly, we see it as a positive for Red Bull because a driver of Kasey's caliber could hopefully help develop the team.

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-- LEE WHITE

"To be honest with you, I don't think that Rick [Hendrick] is going to be asking, 'What's Red Bull Racing doing?' I don't think they need that information, obviously," Busch said. "Look at the way Hendrick Motorsports runs compared to Red Bull Racing. Unless Kasey Kahne comes in there and lights the world on fire in a Red Bull car, but I don't see it. To me, I don't foresee there being anything to be gained there from putting Kasey in that car. That's why I was kind of surprised by it at first."

Although Toyota Racing Development supplies assistance to all three Toyota-backed teams on the Cup tour, TRD president Lee White said the level of involvement differs from one organization to another. Gibbs, which builds its own engines and chassis, is roughly 75 percent self-contained, White said. Compare that to Michael Waltrip Racing, which is "all in" with TRD, White said. Then there's Red Bull, which has its own seven-post rig, chassis dyno, and internal engineering group. It obtains engines from TRD, but not much else -- a remnant of the engineering rivalry between Toyota and Red Bull in Formula One, something that still exists even though Toyota shut down its F1 program in 2009.

"The guys over at Red Bull are kind of on their own island anyway," Hamlin said. "They kind of do things a little bit different than what us or the Michael Waltrip teams do. It's tough to say. I don't think [Kahne] is going to take any valuable information from them."

Hamlin added that there are few commonalities between the Gibbs and Red Bull programs, even though they share the same manufacturer. "It's different," he said. "Our cars are different. You open the hood, and it's two different race cars. It's a lot different."

Asked if there was anything Kahne could learn in one year in a Toyota and use against them once he moves on to Hendrick, White offered a flat no. If anything, the TRD chief views Kahne's one-year Red Bull pit stop as an opportunity to potentially raise the competitive level of an organization that's lagged behind the Waltrip and Gibbs teams in terms of performance. (Continued)