JEFF GREEN
NO. 66 BEST BUY HAAS CNC RACING CHEVROLET
INFINEON RACEWAY PREVIEW

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

YOU’VE RACED MOST OF YOUR CAREER ON OVALS. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE ROAD COURSES, AND DO THEY HAVE A PLACE IN NASCAR? “I think they’re a lot of fun. You get the road course experts that will run all over you if you’re not careful, though. I think they do have a place in NASCAR. There are quite a few fans that enjoy the road course races, and it’s something different for us as drivers, so yeah, it definitely has a place.”

GIVEN YOUR YEARS IN THE SPORT, DO YOU STILL GO TO ROAD COURSE SCHOOLS? “No, I went out to Bondurant (the Bob Bondurant High Performance School of Driving) one time, but that’s been it. If they used the same kind of cars we drive, it might be worth going back there, but they use Mustangs that you’d drive on the street. The main thing they can teach you is just the braking techniques and how to ‘one foot’ (using your right foot on both the brake and accelerator while using the left foot to push in the clutch), but I don’t do that.”

HOW LONG DOES IT USUALLY TAKE YOU TO GET BACK UP TO SPEED ON THE ROAD COURSES EACH YEAR? “Oh, usually around three or four laps. It might take you 15 or 20 minutes to get comfortable with the track again. If they’ve changed the track from one year to the next, it takes a little while to learn where the braking points are now, but if they haven’t changed anything, it doesn’t take long to get back in the groove.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF “BOOTIE” BARKER:

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN A “REGULAR” STOCK CAR BUILT FOR OVAL TRACKS AND ONE BUILT FOR A ROAD COURSE? “Everything’s more symmetrical and more evenly balanced. For oval track cars, everything’s offset to help the car turn to the left. At Sonoma, there are actually more right hand turns than there are left handers, so if anything, the car’s biased more to the right.”

DO YOU FEEL THAT ROAD COURSES HAVE A PLACE IN NASCAR? “Yeah, I do. I think there needs to be a road course in the final 10 races. If the idea is that the champion is supposed to be the best overall driver in the garage, then I think they need to have a half-mile track, a 1.5-mile track, maybe a two-mile track, either a Daytona or a Talladega, and a road course all in the final 10 races. Let them show what they’ve got on every configuration.”

SINCE THERE ARE ONLY TWO ROAD COURSE RACES ON THE SCHEDULE, DO YOU SPEND MUCH TIME WORKING ON THOSE CARS? “No, you don’t spend nearly as much time on a road course car as you do some of the other downforce cars. You may spend 100’s of hours in your Superspeedway cars, for example. You can live in the wind tunnel with one of those. The aerodynamics is so critical at the bigger tracks that you naturally spend more time focusing on that. You don’t short change your road course program, but at the end of the day, you can’t spend too much time on it at the expense of the rest of the races.”

JEFF GREEN’S HISTORY AT INFINEON RACEWAY: Jeff Green has finished on the lead lap in all three of his NEXTEL Cup Series starts at Infineon Raceway. His best finish was a fifth-place result in the June, 2002, event, while driving the No. 30 entry for Richard Childress Racing.

HAAS CNC RACING’S HISTORY AT INFINEON RACEWAY: The Haas CNC Racing team has three starts at Infineon Raceway. The team’s best starting spot and best finishing position were scored by driver Ward Burton in the 2004 event, where Burton started 14th and finished 24th.

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CREWMAN: Front Tire Changer, Sean Haggerty- Best Buy Racing’s website is highlighting the crew members of the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing team. This week’s featured crew member at www.Racing.BestBuy.com is Sean Haggerty, mechanic/front tire changer. Find out how this college graduate went from studying Applied Science to studying the best way to remove a lugnut. Each week, a different crew member is featured with an expanded bio. Read the latest by logging on to either www.racing.bestbuy.com or http://racing.bestbuy.com.