Jeff Green No. 66 Best Buy Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet Talladega Superspeedway Preview

LAST RACE AT TALLADEGA: Jeff Green and the Haas CNC Racing team survived a wild day to finish seventh in the most recent NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Along the way, Green and his No. 66 Windows Live / Best Buy Chevrolet managed to avoid one accident that damaged 11 cars, as well as a crash on the final lap that took out two frontrunners, to post his team’s best finish of the 2006 season.

FIRST TIME: Both Haas CNC Racing NEXTEL Cup Series entries finished in the top-10 last weekend at Phoenix International Raceway, marking the first time the two Haas teams have posted top-10 results in the same race.

Jeff Green’s sixth-place finish marks the second time this season Green has finished in that position (his other sixth-place run came in the COT race at Bristol Motor Speedway last month), the best finish scored by a Haas driver in the team’s NEXTEL Cup Series history.

TESTING: Jeff Green and the No. 66 Best Buy Racing team spent Tuesday, April 24, testing at Kentucky Speedway in one of the “cars of today.” The team hopes to use data gathered during the test to improve its performance on tracks of 1.5 and two miles in length.

Q&A WITH DRIVER JEFF GREEN:

You’re probably not looking forward to getting back in the “old” car after your top-10 finish in the COT last weekend, are you? “I am looking forward to this weekend. We had two good finishes last year at Talladega, so I’m hoping for more of the same. We had a really incredible car at Daytona (International Speedway) in February; a car I honestly think could have won the race. Now that we seem to have our pit crew situation handled, I seriously believe a top-five run is not out of the question.”

Is it very difficult to hold your line when you’re three wide in the draft at Talladega and keep the car from moving around a lot? “A lot of it has to do with the guys you have around you on the track. You have some guys who are really smooth, and that makes it easier. Then you’ve got guys who are all over the place, and that can get a little wild. I think the air moving around the cars kind of makes a little buffer that can help keep you off the guy next to you, too.”

You’ve already matched your total for top-10 finishes from last year. Are you happy with where the team is, performance-wise? “I don’t think you’re ever completely satisfied, but no, not really. I don’t think anyone in the organization is satisfied with where we’re at right now. We’ve had a couple of bright spots, but we’re still struggling with the old car on the mile-and-a-half tracks.

“We’ve got as many top-10’s as we had last year, but in the other races, I think our best finish is still below 20th. We had three or four top-20’s at this point last year, so if you compare our average finishes from last year to now, I bet last year’s is better.

“We’re doing everything we can to get the mile-and-a-half program up to speed. That’s why we went to Kentucky to test.. I think we’ll get there. We’ve got the test at Lowe’s (Motor Speedway) in a week or two, so that should help. We were really good there last May.”

RACING TO LEARN: Best Buy Racing driver Jeff Green spent last Tuesday, April 17, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, taking part in a special live educational broadcast produced by Ball State University.

The show, “Going, Going, Faster: The Science of Speed,” was broadcast via Public Broadcasting System (PBS) channels, as well as over the Internet to students in all 50 states and four other countries (a potential audience of over 19.5 million students, Grades 4-8).

Former Indy Racing League (IRL) driver Scott Goodyear, now an analyst for ESPN and ABC, hosted the show, and National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Pro Stock Bike driver Antron Brown joined Green to help use racing to teach students about science and engineering.

During the show, Green, Goodyear and Brown, along with students from Indianapolis and South Carolina schools and Best Buy employees, helped explain and demonstrate the principles of friction, inertia and downforce, and answered questions posed by students via phone and the Internet.

One of Green’s No. 66 Best Buy Chevrolets was used to illustrate certain points during the show, as were one of Brown’s motorcycles, an NHRA Top Fuel Dragster, and IRL cars.

The one hour broadcast, which is part of Ball State’s Electronic Field Trip (EFT) series, can be viewed over the Internet by clicking the “Watch the Broadcast” link at www.bsu.edu/eft/racing.

Green was invited to take part in the event by the Best Buy Children’s Foundation, which provides funding for the EFT program.

GROUNDBREAKING: Windshear, Inc., owned by Gene Haas, the owner of Haas CNC Racing, has broken ground for the first 180-mph rolling-road wind tunnel in North America. Construction on the 40,000-square-foot facility began April 5, and is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2008.

Official groundbreaking ceremonies for the world-class facility are scheduled for May 1, 2007, at the project site, located at 1050 Ivey Cline Road, Concord, NC  28027. Ceremonies begin at 9:30 a.m.

When completed, the $40 million wind tunnel will be the only one of its type in North America, and only the third of this scale in the world. Windshear, Inc. will ultimately operate the facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a staff of 25. The tunnel will be available for all motorsports teams and auto manufacturers to rent.

NEW CAR CHIEF: The No. 66 team has a new Car Chief in the form of Jeff Lemmons. A former Offensive Guard for Fort Hays University, Lemmons got into racing after college, and worked his way up to the role of Crew Chief for ARCA (Automobile Racing Club of America) legend, Frank Kimmel. Lemmons spent the last three years working with the No. 16 crew of Greg Biffle before joining Haas CNC Racing at the beginning of 2007. In addition to his other duties, Lemmons hands in the second gas can during pit stops for the Best Buy team.

BEST BUY RACING MERCHANDISE AVAILABLE: Fans looking for Best Buy Racing merchandise can log on to Best Buy Racing’s website, www.racing.bestbuy.com, to find hats, T-shirts and other Best Buy Racing/Jeff Green branded merchandise. The website is also the best spot on the Internet to find out the latest news on Green and the No. 66 team, including photos and bios of the crew.

JEFF GREEN’S HISTORY AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY: In 11 Nextel Cup Series races at Talladega Superspeedway, Jeff Green’s best starting spot is a 13th-place qualifying effort that came in the Sept., 2003, event, when Green drove for Petty Enterprises. Green’s best finish in a Cup race at Talladega was a fifth-place finish in Oct., 2002, while driving for Richard Childress Racing.

In seven Busch Series races at Talladega, Green has three top-10 starting positions (1995, 1997 and 2000), and three top-five finishes (third-place finishes in 1997 and 2001, and a fifth-place finish in 2000).

HAAS CNC RACING’S HISTORY AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY: In seven Nextel Cup Series starts at Talladega Superspeedway, the Haas CNC Racing team has one top-10 starting spot (a 10th-place qualifying effort by driver Ward Burton in April, 2004), and two top-10 finishes (a 10th-place finish by Burton in Oct., 2004, and a seventh-place finish by Jeff Green in October of last year).