Aaron’s 499 - Jeff Green Notes

Jeff Green Notes, Quotes: Aaron’s 499
‘Looking for a Friend on Sunday’

This weekend Jeff Green and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway for Sunday’s Aaron’s 499. This will be the second restrictor-plate race of the season and the first of the year at Talladega. Green will be making his sixth career Nextel Cup start at Talladega where he has one of his career top-five finishes. Green finished fifth at the track in October 2002.

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, Dale 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 after winning the championship by 616 points. He 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 Talladega:

“The plate races are tough races to win. It’s not about strategy, it’s not about handling . . . it’s not even about who has the best and fastest car that day. It’s about how many friends you have and when they decide they want to be your friend. Those are factors that take winning the race out of a driver’s control.

“I don’t mind the racing that we see at Talladega and Daytona. The close racing, sure it’s very tough mentally, but that’s a part of racing. The speeds aren’t bad and Talladega is a good track. It’s just the fact that the opportunity to race for the win or a top position at the end of the day is almost solely dependent on how many friends you have. I don’t know if I have enough friends. I don’t know if anyone has that many friends. I might have a few, but I don’t know if that’s enough. It also depends if they are around you at the end of the day, and who knows how that will shake out? Talladega is a race that is very tough to control your own destiny.

“The rules package, the way it is now, makes you dependent so much on a friend to help ‘push’ you through the draft. You can’t just pull out of line and pass by yourself. I think NASCAR had tried a lot of ideas to make the racing better, but right now we still need a partner to go with.

“I don’t know the answer for better restrictor-plate racing. I don’t know if anyone does. I think the Craftsman Truck Series has the best package right now. It seems that they have more ‘drag’ and maybe that’s what we need on our Cup cars. I am not saying that is the answer, but it might be better. It might, however, cause a bigger wreck too, so it’s tough to say. Everybody has ideas and everyone is listening, it has just been tough to come up with the best solution.

“It gets frustrating at times at Talladega because it seems like you’re racing the law of percentages. You have half a chance of getting in the ‘big one’ and half of chance not. Those might be decent odds in Vegas, but they don’t sound like good odds racing for a championship and a win. It’s tough to avoid the ‘big one’ when, and if, it happens. If you get through it, you’re usually in pretty good position. If you don’t, it’s usually a pretty bad wreck.

“Talladega is a beast all to its own. We race so many races each year, but anytime you come to Talladega it’s more of a chess match. The race is determined by which line you follow, when to switch lines, and when to stay in the one you are in. I’ve been in the races where I’ve made the right decision and ones where I could have made a better choice. The best decision it to follow the friend you think you can trust. I think I have a few friends out there - I don’t know if they are enough, but hopefully they’ll be following this Cheerios Dodge to the front at the end of the day on Sunday.”