Aaron's 499 - Jeff Green Notes

Jeff Green Notes, Quotes: Aaron's 499
‘The Driver Has a Different Perspective’

This weekend, Jeff Green and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway for Sunday’s Talladega 500. It’s the second restrictor-plate race of the season. Green will be making his eighth career start at the speedway.

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 second 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 point’s 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 Talladega:

“Talladega, and just restrictor plate racing in general, has become more about finishing the race than anything else. There have been too many big wrecks in the past not to think about keeping the car in one piece. If you can avoid the accidents then you’re probably going to have a good day. If you don’t, your day will probably be pretty short. That’s just the way it is.

“I just look forward to going out the infield tunnel on Sunday. It’s a long race, it’s mentally draining, and by the end of the day you just want to leave. It’s nothing against the track, and it’s nothing against the fans. It’s the fact that you’re nose-to-nose, side-by-side, going 180 miles per hour for three hours. There is no such thing as a ‘little’ mistake at Talladega either. A little mistake means a lot of sheet metal scattered around the track. We’ve seen it too often to think it’s not going to happen every time we race at Talladega.

“Now, if you can avoid the wrecks, you are probably going to have a good finish. The field is usually trimmed by a third or sometimes nearly a half if we have the ‘Big One.’ If you don’t get caught up in that you can usually gain about 10 or 15 positions just by avoiding a wreck. I think all of us, at one time or another, have been on both sides of that equation. You just hope you’re not on the losing end.

“If everything is going your way then the final piece of the puzzle for a good day is a partner to draft with. You need some friends, and I don’t know how many we’ve got out there. People might say they are, but until its crunch time, and time to go, you just never know. It’s a chance you take. If you pull out of line to pass, but don’t have anyone behind you to push you, it’s a pretty sick feeling. You feel pretty lonely, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You need to have someone help you. It’s just another factor of plate racing.

“It’s a different sort of racing. The fans love it and I can understand that, but from a driver’s perspective it’s not my favorite thing to do. There are just too many circumstances that are out of your control. I’ve had some great races going, with great cars, but at the end of the day I’m looking at a destroyed race car because of something that was beyond my control. That’s just really frustrating for anyone.

“I took one of the hardest hits I’ve ever taken last year there. I was hit from behind and took an unbelievable hard hit into the wall. It’s not fun. We had a decent car that day too. But, everyone is in the same situation. It can happen to anyone at anytime. That’s part of the excitement for the fans, but you get a different perspective when you’re sitting behind the wheel.

“If you’re up front a lot of the time you can avoid any trouble. We had a pretty good car at Daytona, and I think we’ll have another good car this weekend. The guys back at the shop have done an awesome job of preparing new Cheerios Dodge Chargers over the winter. Hopefully on Sunday we’ll have one sitting in victory lane.”