JEFF GREEN
NO. 66 SANDISK / BEST BUY HAAS CNC RACING CHEVROLET
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY PREVIEW

SPECIAL PAINT DESIGN FOR TEXAS: Jeff Green’s No. 66 Chevrolet will carry a special black paint design this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, featuring the logo of SanDisk Corporation on the hood of the Haas CNC Racing entry.

SanDisk, the world’s largest supplier of flash memory data storage products, is an associate sponsor of the No. 66 Chevrolet this season. SanDisk joins Best Buy, the consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services retail chain as a sponsor of the Haas CNC Racing entry.

Best Buy, which offers many SanDisk products, is the primary sponsor of the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing team in a select number of races this season. The Best Buy logo will be featured on the car’s rear quarter panel in Sunday’s event.

SanDisk’s products have been around race tracks for years. Many professional photographers use SanDisk high-performance, high-capacity storage cards in their digital cameras, while a number of race fans likely carry SanDisk storage cards in their multimedia mobile phones.

Members of the Motorsports press are increasingly using USB flash drives in place of floppy disks, compact discs with read/write capability and other storage devices in their personal computers and laptops. SanDisk is the largest seller of USB flash drives in the United States.

More information on SanDisk and its product line can be found by visiting http://sandisk.com.

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

You’re running a little different paint design this weekend. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool to be in a black car again. I drove a black No. 3 when I drove in the Busch Series for Dale and Teresa (Earnhardt) back in 1995 and ’96. We had some pretty good luck, so maybe the black car will be a good luck charm this weekend, too.”

What do you think about having SanDisk on the hood? “That’s very cool, too. SanDisk is a great company to be associated with. They’re on the cutting edge of technology, and some of their products are pretty amazing. You can pick up a lot of their stuff at Best Buy. Some of our team guys have SanDisk MP3 players, and they love them. It’s pretty amazing that you can store so much music on something that fits in your pocket, and you don’t have to lug around a CD player and CD’s. Keep an eye on SanDisk. You’re going to be hearing a lot more about them.”

Texas Speedway has changed quite a bit since you first visited there in 1997, hasn’t it? “Yes, it’s opened up quite a bit and now has two or three racing grooves to it. It’s fast, that’s for sure. It seems like Bootie (crew chief ‘Bootie’ Barker) is on top of those kinds of racetracks, so I really like where we’re sitting now.

“We had good runs going at a couple of the other 1.5-mile tracks Vegas (Las Vegas Motor Speedway) and Atlanta (Motor Speedway), but a couple of gremlins jumped up and bit us. If we can put it all together this weekend, I think we’re going to be OK.”

So far, this season seems to be a case of the team running, but something seems to crop up and affect your finish. Is it difficult to stay positive when that happens? “No, it’s really not that hard to stay positive. I’ve been racing most of my life, and you just learn that if you consistently run well, the finishes will come. If we were running poorly every week, that would be cause for concern. We’ve had good runs going in, I’d say, five of the six races, but a different problem seems to get us every time.

“This sport is always going to be a rollercoaster ride, with a lot of ups and downs. If you’re not willing or able to deal with those ups and downs, then you don’t need to be doing this, because it will drive you crazy if you let it. I believe in Bootie and the team, and I believe the momentum will swing our way if we can just keep running as well as we have been.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF “BOOTIE” BARKER:

The Haas CNC Racing team qualified sixth at Texas Motor Speedway last November. With a different tire compound this time around, can you still use notes from last year? “Yeah, we’re coming back with something very similar to what we had here last year. I think the new tires will mean we’ll have less grip, so we’ll have to compensate for that, but we’ll start off practice with something that’s not too far off from what we had last year.

“It seems like our setups this season have been too loose for what Jeff needs in qualifying, but it seems to work in our favor for the race.”

What do you think of the “Car of Tomorrow” concept NASCAR’s working on? “I think they’re opening Pandora’s Box with the new car, and it’s going to open up a lot of different avenues that teams can go down that NASCAR might not necessarily like.”

Would you care to elaborate on that? “Nope. I’m sure there will be plenty of opinions offered as it gets closer to the deadline of when we’re going to phase it in.”

JEFF GREEN’S HISTORY AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: In five Nextel Cup Series starts at Texas Motor Speedway, Jeff Green has three finishes of 20th or better. His best starting spot and best finish came in the 2003 Texas Cup race. While driving the No. 30 car for Richard Childress Racing, Green qualified 14th and finished seventh in that event, held on March 30, 2003.

In six Busch Series starts at Texas, Green has two pole positions (1997 and 2002), and three top-five finishes (1999, 2000 and 2002).

HAAS CNC RACING’S HISTORY AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: In four Nextel Cup Series starts at Texas Motor Speedway, the Haas CNC Racing team scored its best starting spot and best finishing position last November. Driver Mike Bliss started sixth and finished 17th in the November 6, 2005, event.