Red Bull Racing is on the verge of its biggest change in NASCAR in the five years since its Cup Series program debuted, and with Cole Whitt — who’s been supported by the Austrian energy drink manufacturer since his karting days — set to attempt his Cup Series debut this weekend [in the #84 Red Bull Racing Toyota], its future in the sport is back on center stage. There’s a precedent for this being more than a footnote. Whitt, 20, who’s smack in the middle of a three-man Camping World Truck Series Rookie of the Year race, made his Nationwide Series debut at Phoenix a year ago. Whitt’s whirlwind arrival in stock cars after he had a winning impact in USAC short-track open-wheel competition includes fourth in the 2010 K&N Pro Series East championship, where he drove a Toyota owned by Red Bull principal Dietrich Mateschitz to six top-five finishes — including three second-place runs — in 10 starts. If he makes the Phoenix Cup race it’ll mark at least one start in each of NASCAR’s four leading stock car divisions, where he totals 38 starts in the three divisions he’s raced so far. “The [Sprint Cup] car doesn’t have [owners’] points so we’re gonna have to qualify it in [to the race],” Whitt said. “But we have a good team putting the car together. It’s a lot of the same guys who worked on my K&N deal, and they were the ones who put together the Nationwide car, last year as well. They own this team and they have the equipment — it was kind of a no-brainer for us to go and race.” That includes crew chief Randy Cox, who headed the Nationwide Series effort last season with which Whitt made his debut in that series by qualifying 23rd and finishing 15th. A week later Whitt, who won the fall 2009 USAC Silver Crown Series event at Phoenix, qualified 10th at the Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Whitt said there’s a chance Red Bull, which has backed his racing since he was a youth in karting, might enter him in the Homestead Ford 400 as well. Whitt said, Red Bull has already committed to him a similar program as he had in 2011, for next season. But he says he has yet to re-sign with Stacy Compton’s Turn One Racing.(in part fron NASCAR.com)(11-11-2011)
