Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 - Jeff Green Notes

Jeff Green Notes, Quotes: Carolina Dodge Dealers 400

‘From state-of-the-art to ‘old friend’’

Heading to the track commonly referred to as “Too Tough To Tame,” this weekend Jeff Green and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team tackle the egg-shaped 1.366-mile Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and Sunday’s Carolina Dodge Dealers 400. Green will be making his eighth Nextel Cup start at the track, having finished in the top 20 in half of those.

Green, 41, is the only driver to have raced for the sport’s biggest names. Throughout his career, he has driven for Cup’s most legendary names, such as Junior Johnson, Felix Sabates, Richard Childress, Teresa Earnhardt, and now Richard Petty. Green is in his first full season driving the legendary Petty Enterprises #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge. The 2000 NASCAR Busch Grand National champion, he holds the record for the largest points margin by winning the championship by 616 points. Green is also a two-time NASCAR Nextel Cup pole winner, winning poles at the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and the pole for the 2003 Daytona 500.

The thoughts of #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge driver Jeff Green heading into Darlington:

“Over the years we’ve grown our sport and have visited new venues. Places like Homestead, Las Vegas, Chicago and Kansas are all pretty new to racing. If you just look at them from a distance you notice how state-of-the-art they really are. The towers, the suites, and everything else make them more luxurious than some of the older tracks. You look at these new tracks and it’s really cool to see new things, but it’s also pretty cool to go back to an old friend like Darlington.

“It really makes you think about where this sport started. It’s a track like Darlington that made names like Petty, Pearson and Yarborough famous. It’s the ‘The Lady in Black’ reputation that helped NASCAR really define what the sport was all about in a time when fans were learning about our sport. The track was a springboard to help the sport grow into what it is today. If it weren’t for a track like Darlington maybe the sport wouldn’t have became so popular.

“Even if this track is old in time, it still continues come to the forefront of technology. That’s evident in the installation of safer barriers around the track. We’ll see those for the first time this weekend. Anytime you add another element of safety, that is another bonus for both the track and its competitors. It is going to take up some of the space that we used racing up against the wall. The barrier will take away that part of the track and it’s going to change the track. I don’t know what it’s going to offer. We’ll just have to wait and see, but it’s a good addition to the track.

“Darlington, for everything that it is, is really a fun race track - especially when you get into the race itself. You run right up against the fence and there is not a lot of room to work with. The car slides around a lot and I kind of enjoy that. It’s sort of like Rockingham with the car sliding around. You really have to muscle your way around Darlington. You’re just not going to finesse your way around there. Darlington is not a ‘finesse’ type of track.

“The surface of the track is really rough. It eats up tires pretty fast and that’s just another aspect of the track that we have to deal with. The car has no grip and just slides. It becomes a matter of who slides best then. You just try not to slide up into the wall too many times, but it’s hard not to do. Those new safer barriers will probably get a good workout this weekend.

“It’s exciting to come back to Darlington. We’re looking for a good run. The track has been pretty good to me in the past, but we’re looking for a little bit more this weekend. It’s a big deal to win here and this Cheerios team is going to do everything in its power to do just that this weekend.”