Q & A With Driver Jeff Green And Crew Chief Harold Holly

LAST RACE AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: In the November, 2006, race at Texas Motor Speedway, Jeff Green qualified 27th. By lap 93, Green had dropped back as far as 35th position, but his crew made multiple chassis adjustments to the No. 66 Best Buy entry, and Green worked his way into the top-15 by lap 267 of the 339-lap event. Green went on to finish 13th, his fourth-best finish of the 2006 season (after a seventh at Talladega in October, an eighth at Martinsville in October, and a 12th-place finish at Lowe s Motor Speedway in May).

Haas CNC Racing Chassis: Crew Chief Harold Holly is bringing Chassis No. 012 to the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. This is the same chassis the team qualified 29th and finished 25th with at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March. The Haas team took this chassis to a wind tunnel in Mooresville, NC, last week.

TITLE SPONSOR – Jeff Green and the members of the No. 66 Best Buy Racing team have even more incentive than usual to do well this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. One of the team s associate sponsors, Samsung, is the title sponsor (through the company s mobile phone division) of Sunday s race, the Samsung 500. Green s Best Buy Chevrolet carries decals promoting Samsung HDTV s.

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

The Best Buy team s pit box features two 40” Samsung LCD 1080P HDTV s, making the area behind the Best Buy Racing pit stall a popular spot for other teams and fans along pit road to watch the TV broadcast between pit stops. Needless to say, it s one of the few spots on pit road where you can see the broadcast in HD.

Do you feel any extra pressure this weekend, since one of your associate sponsors, Samsung, is sponsoring Sunday s race? “Yeah, a little. I definitely want to do well for the sponsors. We ran a special Samsung paint scheme at Vegas, promoting their Four Seasons of Hope charity with Best Buy to raise money for the Magic Johnson Foundation. We weren t able to give Magic and Samsung the kind of finish we wanted to, so maybe we can make it up by getting a good finish on Sunday. I d love to give Samsung a win in their race. ”

Your team has had more success with the Car of Tomorrow this season than the “traditional” car. Do you see this weekend s race as an opportunity to redeem yourselves with the traditional car? “Well, it s still a race car. That s the way I look at it, and I think that s the way Harold (Holly, crew chief) looks at it, so we just have to go out there and do the best job that we can. I don t think we re behind on the old car, it just seems like we can t hit on what we need to hit on. I m always up for a challenge, and it s going to be a challenge to get this car to where we need it to be.

“We ve been testing with the Car of Tomorrow and have had a couple of races with it, so I m kind of in that mode, but again, a car is a car, and I m still looking for the same kind of feel out of this car as I am the other style. It just seems like it s easier to get the feel I m looking for with the Car of Tomorrow, but hopefully we can get it with this car, too. ”

Texas Motor Speedway fixed the bump that some drivers were complaining about. Did it ever bother you? “I don t think it really bothered anybody when you were running in the bottom groove, but when you tried to run on the outside, it got worse. The higher you went, the worse it got. To allow us to pass each other, I think it needed to be fixed. I think it will make for a better race. Not a different race, but a better race. ”

With Texas Motor Speedway being one of the mile and half tracks, of which there are several, does it have its own personality? “Every track has its own face. You could build identical tracks, but each one is going to have its own personality. It s a track that s shaped after Charlotte (Lowe s Motor Speedway), but it doesn t have as much banking and you drive it a little bit different. Every track has a little bit different grip, and you have to drive them all a little bit differently, regardless of how similar they may look. ”

What did you do with your off weekend? “I had my Mom over, and we had Mark s family over (Green s older brother) and had some Easter dinner. I managed to pick up a cold on Friday and have been trying to shake that, so that s been fun. We usually go home (to Kentucky) for Easter, so staying in North Carolina was a little different.

“I was the Best Man in a wedding on Saturday. Walter Arce (a photographer who covers NASCAR for Action Sports), got married. I ve known him for about 15 years, so congratulations to him. ”

Qualifying for this race falls on Friday the 13th. Are you a superstitious guy? “I don t go out of my way to do something superstitious. I m not the kind of guy that even thinks about stuff like that. I think you make a lot of your luck.

“A lot of drivers don t like to be around anything that s green, but a little girl gave me a green marble back early on in the season in 2000, and I kept it in my pocket all year and won the (Busch Series) championship, so I don t have a problem with anything green. I guess with it being my name, I shouldn t have a problem with it.

“There is one other thing someone keeps reminding me about. I don t wear blue racing shoes. I ll wear them for a photo shoot, but not during a race. The last time I wore blue shoes in a race, I went for a ride at Daytona (Green s car flipped during the Busch Series race at Daytona International Speedway in February, 2000). ”

You used to drive for Dale Earnhardt. He had some superstitions, didn t he? “I don t remember too many superstitions from him, other than the penny on the dash, that s the only thing he let everybody know about. He was too macho to let anyone know that he was superstitious, or that he did anything like that. He wanted everyone to think that he made everything happen, and around his world, I guess he pretty much did. ”

He wasn t a big fan of peanuts or $50 bills, though, right? “Yeah, now that I think about it. That s not something you ever really thought about with him, though. You just knew not to bring those things around. ”