Monday June 20,2011 employees from Red Bull Racing Team, were informed that they would not be returning to NASCAR, following the 2011 season. However, there are reports that a company executive from Red Bull, went to Michigan International Speedway to inform NASCAR executives, that they would be withdrawing from NASCAR.
There is one problem with this, NASCAR knew before Red Bull Racing Team employee's knew, is that fair? No, in my opinion it's not. They deserved to know before anyone else, after all that is infact, their livelyhood. Brian D'Heel (member of the 4 pit crew), announced a few weeks ago on Twitter that he and his wife were expecting their 2nd child. Engineer Keith Rodden and wife Jill are expecting their first in September, Kenny Francis has 2 children, Brit Fryer has a child, and the 83 Spotter Chris Lambert has 2 children, and that's not including the people back at the shop that have a family to support. Children that need them, to be able to provide, for them. It would only be fair, if Red Bull, would have told them so they could have prepared theirselves and their family. In my opinion its very unlikely that the decision was just made, it was probably made a while ago, but they just now decided that it would okay for them to inform the media, and the employee's themselves.
My heart goes out to all the Redbull employee's that will be looking for jobs, but I also have faith that, those employees won't have a problem finding new jobs.
What does this mean for Brian Vickers and Cole Whitt? We already know where Kasey's going next year, and for that I'm thankful. I feel almost certain that Kenny Francis and Keith Rodden, and hopefully Todd DeVinch will also follow Kasey to Hendrick Motorports, but that still leaves Brian Vicker's career hanging in the balance.
With re-signing at Red Bull out of the question now, this just puts more pressure on Brian Vickers to go out there and perform and show teams how good of a driver that he really is. But with the other free agents that are out there it's not going to be the easiest task to find a new ride, I'm not saying that he can't, becuase I believe that he can, it's just going to be very difficult. Whitt, is young enough, that he's still got time to find a ride, and I beleive that he will, he's already got a truck ride with Turn One.
What does this mean for NASCAR? Well, simply put, it sucks, because you're going to see more start and parks next year, because unless Jay Frye, can find some investors and sponsorship, that means that it will be alot easier to start and park.
Where does Red Bull go from here? Simple. To Formula 1, with Sebastian Vettel, who is currently first in points, and has proven that he can win, Red Bull has been more focused on F1, that's not surprising. But the cowardly way they did it, was wrong. It doesn't matter how you look at it. The EMPLOYEE'S should have known before NASCAR did. That way when the Media found out they weren't bombarded by question and what if's and why.
My advice to Red Bull : Grow a pair.
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