TEAM RED BULL
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
ALLSTATE 400 AT THE BRICKYARD

ENTRIES: Red Bull No. 83 Brian Vickers and Red Bull No. 84 AJ Allmendinger
RACE: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup, “Allstate 400 at the Brickyard”
TRACK: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN
DATES: July 27th-29th, 2007

+ INDY AND AMERICAN DREAMS
Let’s see … is it possible to rank the significance of a Nextel Cup race? The Daytona 500, NASCAR’s annual Super Bowl of stock-car racing, clearly is No. 1. Teams spend an entire winter prepping for the greatest of all American races. Even a United States president, Ronald Reagan, thought the 500 was worthy of his presence in 1984.

The pecking order after that, however, is open for debate. Anyone who is involved in making a 3,400-pound, full-bodied race car go fast will tell you the Brickyard 400 — err, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard — is right up there. The 600-mile race at Charlotte deserves a podium finish, as does the old Southern 500 at Darlington, which had been on every driver’s to-do list.

But the Brickyard is the Brickyard. Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a gargantuan facility steeped in motorsports history that deserves its own zip code, is a race every driver — Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger included — is gunning for. So big is Indy that a winning driver, his team and entourage kneel down to smooch a three-foot-wide stretch of dust-covered bricks at the start-finish line. That public show of affection is displayed nowhere else on the Nextel Cup circuit.

Does that make Indy No. 2 on the list of biggest NASCAR races? Whatever your opinion might be, BV loves the place. In three starts, twice he has rolled off from the fifth position, and he finished third in 2005.

+ WHERE ARE YOU STATIONED?
The Red Bull Energy Station makes a return appearance this weekend in Indy. Look for the heaven of hospitality inside of turn one near Gasoline Alley. You can’t miss us. The Red Bull Energy Station is hosting an industry party from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday for any busy body that owns a “hard” card — the rectangular-shaped ID badge that grants access to plenty of places. We’ll be waiting.

+ BULL LOOSE AT LAGUNA SECA
Last weekend’s Red Bull MotoGP U.S. Grand Prix featured high-performance motorcycles traversing Laguna Seca Raceway at ridiculous speeds. There was, however, a sighting of a machine that uses four wheels. AJ finessed his race-ready No. 84 Red Bull Toyota around the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course for about 10 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. The crowd had a hoot, as AJ (this was his off weekend, mind you) returned to his road-course roots to show off his knack for braking and turning right.

+ QUOTES
Brian Vickers, No. 83 driver - “Indy is a very fun track for a driver to get around. You just get excited going there when you think of all the history that surrounds the track. In the past, I have had some success there, and finished third two years ago. I usually qualify well at the Brickyard, too, so I hope that will continue this week with the No. 83 team.”

Doug Richert, No. 83 crew chief – "Indianapolis is a pretty tough track to get a hold of because there are such flat corners and long straightaways. You have to set up your car to go through the corners as good as you can, and you need a lot of grip to get through the corner and head down the straightaways. We’re going to put a lot of emphasis on our qualifying effort, just like we have to do every week. We’re also hoping for a good qualifying draw, which for this weekend is an early draw because we start qualifying at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. The race track is really affected by the sun, and by midday the track really slows down. So we’re hoping to draw a low number and get out there early.”

AJ Allmendinger, No. 84 driver – “I was lucky enough to be invited to the Red Bull MotoGP Championship at Laguna Seca over the off weekend and even got to drive my Cup car around the course. It was nice to have some time off to re-energize and rest up, but now it is a new week and we are all ready to get back to racing. I’m excited about going to such a historic track as Indy. This is one of the most prestigious races of the year, and it would be a great achievement to race at the Brickyard. I think this is going to be the weekend this team turns things around.”

Ricky Viers, No. 84 crew chief - “Over the off weekend, AJ and I went to the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix MotoGP event at Laguna Seca Raceway. It was a great way to let off a little steam and relax a little without the pressure we usually feel on the weekends. I think Indy is a great place for us to break our streak of four missed races. AJ is focused, the team is focused and everyone has had an extra week to prepare for this race. So as a team there are no excuses why we shouldn’t make the race.”