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

BEST BUY “COOL GIFTS” SWEEPSTAKES GOING ON NOW:

Race fans can enter to win the Ultimate Dad's Day gift, on or off the track!

Log on to www.racing.bestbuy.com to enter the Best Buy "Cool Gifts" Sweepstakes for your chance to win the ultimate cool gift: A trip to spend race day with the Best Buy Racing Team! Join Jeff Green, Bootie Barker and the entire No. 66 Best Buy Racing pit crew as their Honorary Crew Chief, and win a 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo!

Best Buy is also giving away more than 150 other Cool Gifts to make the big race that much better, including;
- Five (5) Toshiba 50" DLP TV’s
- Fifty (50) Sony DSC T9 Digital Cameras and SanDisk Memory Cards
- Twenty-five (25) Pioneer Portable XM Satellite receivers & 3 months of service
- Fifty (50) SanDisk 2GB MP3 players
- Twenty-five (25) Samsung phones and 3 months Cingular service

Entries must be received before midnight CST, Saturday, June 17. Visit racing.bestbuy.com from June 11-June 17 to learn more and enter to win!

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

You haven’t had as much success at Michigan as you have some other tracks. What do you think of the place? “I like the place. I’m not sure why we haven’t done as well here. We ran pretty well here when I drove for (Richard) Childress. I guess we’ve just never been able to get the right package at the right time.

“It’s pretty smooth, and you can run all over the place in terms of the groove – pretty much anywhere you want to.”

The team has been strong at tracks like Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Talladega, but why have tracks like Pocono and Dover been more difficult? “Well, and I think ‘Bootie’ (Barker, crew chief) will say this as well, the package we’ve got under the cars seems to work better on smoother tracks like Charlotte is now. The shock and spring package we’ve been using just doesn’t adapt as well to the rougher tracks like Dover. It’s probably one of the roughest tracks we go to. We think we’ve learned what we need to take back when we race at those places again, though.”

As a driver in his first season with a new crew chief and a new team, do you think the new testing rules negatively affect your situation more than someone who’s been with the same team for a few years? “Well, I think where the testing rules hurt us is just more as a one-car operation. The testing rules are designed to help the small teams compete, but still, some other teams have three or four or five sets of notes they can look at after every practice, and we have one.

“We went to Charlotte (Lowe’s Motor Speedway) and tested for two days and figured out what we needed, and it showed that weekend. It’s just hard to try a lot of different stuff in a 90-minute practice, which is what we’re usually getting before qualifying now.”

Does having a teammate in the Busch Series like Johnny Sauter help you out on the NEXTEL Cup side very much? “Not nearly as much as some people might think. The Busch and Cup cars are two different animals. When Johnny has driven one of our Cup cars, he and I have ended up with very similar setups, but the Busch car has too many variables that differ from what we’re doing. Johnny is a big help in telling us how the track reacted during the Busch race, but that’s probably the best thing he can give us.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF “BOOTIE” BARKER:

As a crew chief, what do you think about when you go to Michigan? “Well, at Michigan (International Speedway), you’ve got to have a lot of horsepower, and you have to have good aero (dynamics). It’s hard to not have the car too loose getting into the corners, and you still have to have the car turning well coming off the corner.

“Michigan is what I consider to be the originator of the D-shaped oval tracks. California (Speedway) is similar, but not too much so. The other thing I love about Michigan is that it’s wide, and has multi-groove racing. It’ s a fun track, and definitely one of my favorites.”

Some writers feel like you’re having a great season as the top-ranked single car NEXTEL Cup Series team, but others think you should be higher in the standings, since you’re using Hendrick motors and chassis. How do you respond to that? “That’s an interesting question. I feel like we’re getting better, and we’re making moves to get better. We’ve had some bright spots this year. We’ve had pretty good qualifying efforts, and we ran up front at Lowe’s (Motor Speedway), but we’ve also had some races I’d rather forget.

“I won’t make excuses. We do have Hendrick support, and we need to be better. What I will say is that things aren’t always as they seem, and leave it at that.”

JEFF GREEN’S HISTORY AT POCONO RACEWAY: In 13 NEXTEL Cup Series starts at Michigan International Speedway, Jeff Green’s best qualifying effort was a 13th-place starting spot, which he accomplished twice, in August, 1997, and June, 2003. His best finish was a ninth-place run, which came in August, 2002.

In seven NASCAR Busch Series starts at Michigan, Green has two top-10 starting spots, and a third-place finish in the August, 2002, race.

HAAS CNC RACING’S HISTORY AT POCONO RACEWAY: In six NEXTEL Cup Series starts at Michigan, the Haas CNC Racing team has two sixth-place starting spots (August, 2003, and August, 2005, with drivers Jason Leffler and Mike Bliss, respectively). The team’s best finish was a 19th-place run by driver Jack Sprague in June, 2003.

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CREWMAN: Engine Tuner, Jon Clark - Best Buy Racing’s website is highlighting the crew members of the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing team. 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.