TEAM RED BULL
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
CHECKER AUTO PARTS 500

ENTRIES: Red Bull No. 83 Brian Vickers and Red Bull No. 84 AJ Allmendinger
RACE: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup, “Checker Auto Parts 500”
TRACK: Phoenix International Raceway, Avondale, AZ DATES: November 9-11, 2007

+ LONGEST ARM OF THE LAW
Red Bull Racing Team will be sure to walk a straight line during this weekend’s stay in the Valley of the Sun. We wouldn’t want to upset “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”

Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, is no joke, and he doesn’t mess around when it comes to enforcing the law in the Phoenix area — and that includes Phoenix International Raceway, the site of Sunday’s Nextel Cup race and a place where the moral conscience can take a back seat to debauchery.

At 75 years old, Arpaio treats inmates as harsh as legally possible to drive home the punishment portion of their incarceration. Meals are limited to twice daily, and he even removed salt and pepper. He reinstituted chain gangs, introduced pink underwear that robs men of machismo and erected Tent City — and outside extension of the Maricopa County Jail. On a 110-degree day in Tent City in 2003, Arpaio told complaining inmates, “It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn’t commit any crimes, so shut your mouths.”

Contoversial? Maybe. Effective? Certainly. Either way, Arpaio and his Posse are ready to cuff, stuff and severely punish at a moment’s notice. He really does have an all-volunteer Posse, too, responsible for everything from traffic control to chasing down deadbeat dads.

If all goes well in Friday’s qualifying, Red Bull Racing Team’s two drivers, AJ Allmendinger and Brian Vickers, will keep their miles per hour to a minimum during pre-race pace laps because Arpaio, as the honorary pace car driver, will enforce a standard of speed before the green flag waves.

+ OVERTIME APPROVED FOR AJ, BV
AJ Allmendinger’s Busch Series tutorial continues, as he’ll drive Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 41 Dodge in the final two events of the season. Start No. 6 comes in Saturday’s Arizona.Travel 200 at Phoenix. Allmendinger’s best Busch finish is 14th Sept. 7 at Richmond, and he has qualified in the top 15 three times.

Brian Vickers has seat time schedule for Saturday, too. He’ll drive Braun Racing’s No. 10 Toyota — his first race with the team since finishing ninth Sept. 29 at Kansas.

+ ASPHALT NOW, SNOW LATER
Red Bull athlete and freestyle skier Kristi Leskinen is mixing in a little NASCAR as she prepares to go for superpipe gold in January’s Winter X Games 12. She’ll hang out with Red Bull Racing Team this weekend at Phoenix. The Pennsylvania-bred Leskinen has helped establish women’s freeskiing as a mainstream action sport, but she’s extreme in everything she does. Named one of FHM’s “100 Hottest Women of 2005,” Leskinen recently spent a week skiing, bungee jumping and paragliding in New Zealand, golfing in Las Vegas, dirt biking in Phoenix and wakeboarding in Florida.

+ QUOTES
Brian Vickers, No. 83 driver: “We’ve really been battling with our COT program this year, but we’ve seen improvement over the last few COT races so that’s a good sign. This is our last chance to race the COT before we go a full season with it in 2008. Making the race is crucial for us to not only earn more points going into Homestead, but to have the opportunity to learn about how the COT runs during a rac . When you run just one practice session at a track and then get sent home after qualifying, it’s really hard to learn anything at all about the car. That’s been one of our downfalls.”

Randy Cox, No. 83 crew chief: “Phoenix is a really unique track. It’s just one of those tracks that’s hard to find a comparison track to test on throughout the year. A lot of teams will go to Gateway in St. Louis to test, but unfortunately, that’s not one of the tracks where we’ve tested this year. We have tested the COT, though, and we’ve done some testing on 1-mile tracks, so hopefully that knowledge will help us to at least put down a good qualifying lap. The first time around at PIR, both of our teams didn’t make the race, so we’re hoping to come out to PIR a lot better prepared now having learned from our mistakes.”

AJ Allmendinger, No. 84 driver: “Even though we didn’t make the Phoenix race earlier in the year, I am looking forward to this weekend. Our COT program has really come around since then. We learned some stuff in Loudon and Martinsville that has helped us get the car better, and this team is still planning to finish this season off strong.”

Ricky Viers, No. 84 crew chief: “Well, we are coming off our best overall race weekend of the season, except for being taken out by the No. 11 car at the beginning of the race. Unfortunately those things happen, but we are already looking ahead to this weekend in Phoenix. We ran well at Martinsville a few weeks ago with the COT program. That, coupled with the fact that AJ is running the Busch car this weekend, will be a tremendous amount of help. We feel like we are making a lot of gains with this race team. The goal is still the same — to end the season strong, with momentum rolling over to next year. And Phoenix will hopefully be one of those races that will just help build on that momentum.”