Advance Auto Parts 500 - Jeff Green Notes

Jeff Green Notes, Quotes: Advance Auto Parts 500
Green, Cheerios Team Excited About Martinsville

This weekend Jeff Green and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the .526-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway for Sunday’s Advance Auto Parts 500. Petty Enterprises has won at this track over a dozen times with multiple drivers. The #43 team most recently won this race in 1999. Green finished seventh at the track last October after starting 10th in the Cheerios Dodge.

Green 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 driver Jeff Green heading into Martinsville:

“We ran really well at Martinsville last October, and I’m pretty excited to get back there. We struggled a little bit in this race last season, but Kyle (Petty) had a good race. Hopefully we’ll both be able to put together good runs this time around. I think we’re all looking forward to it.

“You know, we’ve been decent so far this season. We made a lot of improvements over the winter, and obviously our horsepower has picked up. But, we’re getting better in every area. The one area that we’ve been pretty good at for a while is our short track stuff. Our cars have always been good here for some reason, and hopefully we’ll have another good car when we unload on Friday.

“We tested some brake packages for Martinsville. We just made sure that we’ve got everything squared away like we need to. Brakes are the most important aspect of Martinsville. They get abused, and just to go and test, and to know that we’ve got the best under our car, is worth the time. You don’t hear about a lot of people testing brake packages, but the brakes are just as important as anything else at Martinsville, and more important than a lot of others.

“You have to concentrate on saving your car for the end. We did a good job last time there with just saving the equipment. The car was fast all day, but more importantly, we had a good car at the end. Any time you still have a good car after 500 laps at Martinsville you are going to have a good day. That was what we were able to do, and that’s a big part of having a good finish.

“We didn’t exactly have a clean day. Martinsville is flat and really, really tight. Pit road is even tighter, and fitting 43 cars in there is almost a science. We had some problems getting in and out of pit road - getting blocked in and stuff. It’s just so tight and getting blocked in is always going to be a concern at Martinsville. There just isn’t enough room all the time for guys coming out and others coming in. It’s always a concern and something to watch.

“You just can’t ever rest. You’re working hard on the track and you’re working hard on pit road too. You need some luck, and you need to have a car that’s still running well at the end. We know we can do it, and we know we can have a good run. This Cheerios team is excited about getting back to Martinsville.”