Late Crash Foils Top-15 Finish for Green, No. 66 Comcast Team

DOVER, Del. (Sept. 23) – Jeff Green and the No. 66 Comcast team did everything in their power to score a top-15 result in Sunday’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway.

Despite a 34th-place qualifying effort, Green’s hard driving, coupled with quick work by the Haas CNC Racing pit crew, put the team’s Chevrolet Impala SS comfortably in 14th position with less than 20 laps remaining in the 400-lap event.

Just when it looked like the No. 66 team would score its best finish since a 19th-place effort at Pocono Raceway last month, Kurt Busch’s No. 2 Dodge entry slammed the outside retaining wall in Turn 2 of “The Monster Mile,” setting off a chain reaction crash that collected 10 cars, including Green’s No. 66 machine.

With his car too damaged to drive after the crash, a dejected Green climbed from his injured machine and headed to the infield care center for a mandatory exam by track medics.

Green, who was unhurt in the accident, emerged from the center a few minutes later and spoke with reporters about the incident.

“All I saw was smoke,” Green said. “It’s a heartbreaker. We were working on a top-10 finish for everyone with Best Buy and Comcast. We had a lot of guests here today, and I was really excited when we were running so well, because I wanted to give our sponsors a good finish. It’s been too long since our last really good run, and we definitely had one going today.

“I’m not sure what happened. I’ll have to watch the replay. Someone told me Kurt (Busch) hit the wall, and everything from there is just what happens when you have a bunch of cars running together. It was a chain reaction, and we had nowhere to go to avoid it. It’s just incredibly frustrating.”

The team surveyed the car to see if they might be able to get Green back on the track, but the damage was too extensive to repair in the few laps remaining. Done for the day, the Comcast team packed up their equipment, settling for a 31st-place finish.

It was a disappointing end to what had been an exceptional day for Green and his Haas CNC Racing crew.

From the drop of the green flag, Green began picking up positions, moving from his 17th-row starting position into the top-30 just 10 laps into the event. By lap 24, Green was in the top-20, and he remained in the top-25 over the next 75 laps.

By lap 136, the Comcast entry was being shown in the 15th position, but an incident on pit road dropped Green back to 25th position just a few laps later.

A caution flag on lap 147 provided the No. 66 team with an opportunity to take on fresh tires and fuel, but as Green was slowing to enter his pit stall, he was clipped from behind by the No. 42 car of Juan Pablo Montoya.

The impact sent Green’s car spinning sideways in his pit stall, leaving the nose of the No. 66 pointing directly at the pit road wall and both rear tires on the outside of the line marking the outside edge of the pit stall.

NASCAR rules state that only the right rear tire can be over the line while the car is being serviced. If any other tires are outside the pit box and the pit crew works on the car, the team is penalized. With that in mind, Green righted his car and made another lap before coming back to pit road for fresh tires.

Green restarted the race and wasted no time in regaining his lost positions, moving back into the top-20 by lap 180, and back into the top-15 by the midway point of the race.

In spite of a tight handling condition on his No. 66 Chevy, Green drove his way up to the 11th position with a pass on Jeff Gordon on lap 265. As the frontrunners began making green flag pit stops, Green found himself running as high as sixth position by lap 301, before it was Green’s turn to pit on lap 312.

When Green returned to the race, he was shown a lap down to leader Carl Edwards, who was by far the class of the field. Edwards had pitted some 21 laps earlier than Green, and Edwards’ faster lap times on newer tires allowed the driver of the Office Depot Ford to lap all but the top six cars, leaving some 37 drivers at least one lap down.

Green was attempting to work his way back onto the lead lap until Kurt Busch’s accident took Green out of the event with 14 laps remaining. When interviewed after the crash, Busch said he thought something had broken on his car, which caused him to slide up and make contact with the wall.

The finish keeps Green in 29th position in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup drivers’ points standings, and team owner Joe Custer remains in 31st in the owners’ points.

The race was won by Carl Edwards (No. 99 Office Depot Ford), followed by Greg Biffle (No. 16 Nintendo Wii Ford), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet), Mark Martin (No. 01 Army Chevrolet) and Kyle Busch (No. 5 Kellogg’s/CARQUEST Chevrolet).

While Edwards lapping the field was unusual enough, the race was also remarkable in terms of the number of the Chase for the Championship contenders who ran into difficulties during the event.

In fact, Edwards and Kyle Busch were the only two drivers who are in contention for the championship who finished the race on the lead lap. Kevin Harvick lost several laps after pitting once during green flag conditions for a loose wheel on his No. 29 entry, only to then suffer a flat tire later in the race. Jimmie Johnson also fell victim to a cut tire, while Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer both suffered damage to their machines when Hamlin tangled with Kyle Petty. For the complete story, visit NASCAR.com (http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/opinion/09/23/chase.drivers.dover.maumann/index.html)

The next event on the NEXTEL Cup schedule is at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway, where the No. 66 team will carry the colors of Garmin. A Best Buy retail partner, Garmin is an associate sponsor of the No. 66 team, and is headquartered in nearby Olathe, Kan.

The Lifelock 400 will air live on Sunday, Sept. 30, beginning at 1 p.m. on ABC and MRN Radio affiliates.