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

TESTING: Jeff Green and the No. 66 Best Buy Racing team spent Monday and Tuesday, May 7-8, testing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in preparation for the upcoming Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup event there on Memorial Day weekend.

Green unofficially posted the eighth-fastest time of the afternoon session, with a lap of 30.034 seconds at an average speed of 179.796 miles per hour. Green’s No. 66 Best Buy Chevrolet posted the 13th-fastest time overall in the evening session.

CHASSIS: Haas CNC Racing Chassis No. 409 – The No. 66 Best Buy Racing team will take Chassis No. 409 to Darlington Raceway this weekend. The team tested with this chassis at Bristol Motor Speedway in March, and competed with it in the debut race of the Car of Tomorrow at Bristol. Driver Jeff Green qualified ninth and finished sixth in that race, his best finish of 2007 (tied with a sixth-place run at Phoenix International Raceway).

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

You ran in the top-10 for the first half of the race at Richmond International Raceway. Are you still enjoying the Car of Tomorrow? “Absolutely. We’ve got to work on getting more rear grip, which is what I was dealing with early on at Richmond, but our lap times were very competitive. We’re working on getting our brake issues fixed. I know Harold (Holly) and the guys would love to have had the whole week to focus on brakes before this weekend, so the test at Lowe’s (Motor Speedway) really added to their workload.

“It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks, especially when you add in the Dover test, but at least we’ve got a couple of races in Charlotte coming up and the guys will get to sleep in their own beds.”

As a driver that’s won a NASCAR race at Darlington (the March, 2001, Busch Series race), how cool is it as a driver to have gone to Victory Lane at “The Lady In Black?” “It’s an amazing feeling to win there. It’s one of those tracks that you saw on TV when you were growing up. Daytona, Bristol and Darlington – those are the “heritage” tracks where you really want to win. I mean, you want to win at every track, but winning at a place like Darlington is just special. It’s icing on the cake.”

Do you remember getting your first “Darlington Stripe?” “You know, it’s been quite awhile, so I don’t remember that much about it. What I do remember is that I don’t think I got one the first time I came here. All that meant was that I got braver the next time around and definitely got one then. I’ve gotten quite a few of them in all my years of coming here.

“Staying off the wall is always on your mind. If it isn’t, that’s when you’re going to mess up and it’s guaranteed you’ll brush the wall then.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF HAROLD HOLLY:

As a guy who knows the sport’s history, how exciting was it for you to win a race at Darlington (with Jeff Green in the March, 2001, Busch Series race)? “All those historical tracks like Darlington and Bristol, all those places, that’s something you can really go back and cherish. That day was a really special day, because Jeff and (Matt) Kenseth were really duking it out on the track. We had been leading that race and Kenseth got by us on a restart and took off. We got another caution and beat him out of the pits, and Jeff figured out what Kenseth had done to get by him the time before, and they had a pretty good duel going there at the end. We were really fortunate to win that race.”

A team wants to win at every track, but for you, what are the tracks where you’d most like to win? “Bristol is one of the tracks where we haven’t won. We finished second there a couple of times. Bristol and Michigan (International Speedway) are probably the biggest two. Michigan is such a big track, and the surface is so challenging to get a hold on. If you win that race, you’ve really done your homework and your car’s right, your crew is right and it just takes everything being put together to win at a place like that.”

JEFF GREEN’S HISTORY AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY:

In 11 Nextel Cup Series starts at Darlington, Jeff Green’s best starting spot came in March, 2002, when he qualified ninth in a Richard Childress Racing entry. Green’s best finish came later that year, when he finished 12th in the Labor Day weekend race on Sept. 1, 2002, also in a Childress entry.

In 16 Busch Series starts at Darlington, Green has one pole position, which came while driving for team owners, Dale and Teresa Earnhardt, in March, 1996. Green and crew chief Harold Holly also scored a win in the March, 2001, event, while driving for Greg Pollex. In all, Green has nine top-10s and five top-five finishes in his Busch Series career at “The Lady in Black.”

HAAS CNC RACING’S HISTORY AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY: In six Nextel Cup starts at Darlington, the Haas CNC Racing team’s best qualifying effort came in March, 2004, when driver Ward Burton qualified 13th. The team’s best finish came in November, 2004, with driver Mike Bliss finishing 10th in that event.