Insider's View: David Green

As I sit here looking at the last five races of this NASCAR Busch Series season, and having a really solid shot at my second championship, nine years after I won the first one, I really have to reflect on what a perfect set of bookends my career has, right now.

I got my first job, full-time in racing I guess in 1990 when I was working with Wayne Day, a racer based in Nashville that I ran for at the Nashville Fairgrounds and who still races in the Busch Series today.

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Obviously, that led to an opportunity with Filmar Racing, another team that was based in Nashville and that Bobby Hamilton had driven for in the Busch Series. In 1991, I raced for the rookie of the year in the Busch Series alongside Jeff Gordon and a couple of other guys.

We sat on the pole at the first race at Daytona and went on to win the seventh race that season, at Lanier Speedway in Georgia, which made my first win in about my 10th or 11th start.

In reality, it was only the seventh race of the season with that new team and I'm proud of that, even though it's probably not in the record books, because they count those straggling races I did in 1990.

If you fast forward to the end of that season we lost the rookie of the year deal by a few points to Gordon and all of a sudden, the team had no sponsorship for 1992, so I had to scramble around.

I went back to Kentucky and didn't know what was going to happen. I was within inches of just saying, "That's it, it's not working out for me."

Then Bobby Labonte, who had won the Busch championship that year, called me and said he needed some help.

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He said the most interesting things to me. No. 1, he said, "I need help on my team."

But No. 2, he said "I understand you want to be a driver, and I can make sure that you're there every week to keep your face visible."

To me, that was such a nice thing to hear, so I scrambled around and packed my stuff up and went to North Carolina, not knowing if I'd stay there for a week or a month or a year; or now, going on 11-plus years.

I went over there and spent 1992 actually working for Bobby at his shop, as a spotter and working under his dad, Bob Sr. on a day to day basis.

It was a pretty successful year in that Bobby won three races and lost the championship to Joe Nemechek by just three points. But for me it was priceless as I spent a year learning the ropes off the racetrack as a driver, hanging with Bobby and the people from our sponsor Slim Jim and Terry Labonte, when he came by.

I was getting taught some pretty valuable lessons from some pretty good people, and I think that was the turning point in my career, even though I had to sit out a year.

In 1993, Bobby pulled his name off the Slim Jim Chevrolet when he went Winston Cup racing, we put my name on it, and away we went.

	Bobby Labonte

We led the points for a while before Steve Grissom won the title, and then we came back the next season and won nine poles and the championship.

The next year was kind of a rebuilding year for us because they switched from the V6 engines back to V8s. We won a race and four poles and were competitive, but things just didn't work out for us that year.

At the end of that season, Bobby had been Winston Cup racing for two or three years with the Maxwell House car at Bill Davis Racing, and he wanted to get back involved with his own team and run some Busch races again.

I was also getting some offers from some other people so we both kind of came to the conclusion that it was a great time together but now maybe he had set me sailing after building me a fast boat; and it was time for me to steer it -- at least that was the way I took it.

Right off the bat it was tough for me to live outside the Labonte umbrella, because I had learned so much and I tailored everything I was doing in racing after what they had taught me.

Probably for the years to come, 1996 and right through 1997 and 1998, everything I had learned and was trying to do was probably a sticking point to other teams and team members because I quickly became looked at as a driver that was hard to please.

But as soon as I heard that, I felt good because I knew that I had been taught by the best and that work ethic had resulted in wins and a championship. So I knew that was the right way, and it was a matter of me living my post-Labonte era in a constructive manner, from my viewpoint, and not being too demanding.

	Green won the Busch title in 1995 despite winning just once.

In 1996, we came close to winning the championship, losing it to Randy LaJoie by just less than 30 points. I had a great sponsor in Caterpillar and a good little team that was basically in its first full year of Busch racing, American Equipment Racing.

Probably more times than not, even though we won two races, four poles and had 18 top-10 finishes in 26 races, our relationship was strained because I knew what I wanted and I knew how we needed to do it to get there. I was probably not the easiest guy to be around but I would never take that back, or change that.

After we almost won the championship, Caterpillar decided it wanted to go Winston Cup racing. At that point I really felt like I was at the point in my career that I was not as young as some of the young guys are and I felt like I had not necessarily paid my dues but that I was ready as a driver to go Winston Cup racing.

So we embarked on that, with a brand new team. Caterpillar gave us everything we needed to go Winston Cup racing but we as a group, were just not ready.

I say that because there were probably times in which I was not complementing the team in the right fashion for us to grow, after only having one year, 1996, together.

I don't know if the team having four or five or six years of Busch experience together would have made it better; or if I had more years experience in a Winston Cup car. But we embarked on it together, and it just never worked out.

We had some bright spots but for the most part we weren't having fun. It seemed like at times I was pulling in one direction and the other guys were pulling somewhere else. Nonetheless we tried to make it work and Caterpillar, after that, went with Bill Davis Racing and found a good home.

I moved on as well and that was just a tough part of my career that I'm not blaming Winston Cup racing on. But at the same time it reinforces the fact that you have to have experience, you have to have a sound organization and obviously you have to have a sponsor.

	Green won at Nashville in the spring for his first career superspeedway win in the Busch Series.

In this case, we had a great sponsor, and sometimes that doesn't make it all work, so at any rate at that point I was trying to rebuild my career and I'll never forget going back to the Busch Series in the mid-point of the 1998 season after I was released from the Caterpillar ride.

I got into the Stanley Pontiac at Cicci-Welliver and it was like I was trying to start all over again to rebuild my confidence. I'll never forget those first five races, because the worst we finished was, like, fifth.

It was such a good feeling to know that some of those things I had learned early on that I had tried to put out of my mind through my Winston Cup stuff because I was beginning to wonder if it was the right thing or the right attitude to have; now all of a sudden it got reassured that it was the right thing.

Now I was thinking the same things that would get you to Victory Lane and make you competitive and all of a sudden it's working, again.

So it was up-and-down and up-and-down and at that point I was trying to get my career back on track, and just like every other driver out there, you never want to give up on something that you've started, and that you haven't succeeded at, which was Winston Cup.

So in 1999 Larry Hedrick gave me an opportunity in the No. 41 Winston Cup car and there was kind of the same scenario. There were some bright spots, but then there were a lot of tough times.

Larry's team was in a rebuilding process as well and we were hoping as we rebuilt there that some of us would be the missing links that were needed, but it just never worked out, again.

Near the end of the 1999 season, I got traded, in effect, and went over to drive for the Tyler Jet team, which is now the No. 10 Valvoline team that Johnny Benson drives for.

	Green's win at Kansas was his eighth career victory.

We did six or eight races and it was by far the best time I'd had in Winston Cup because crew chief James Ince and I kind of clicked, we had Hendrick engines and we went out to Phoenix and had a great race.

I got my best career finish, which I hate to say was only about 11th, but it was a step in the right direction for me, personally. We went to Homestead and sat on the pole for the inaugural Winston Cup race there and had a decent race.

I felt like things were beginning to turn the corner for me in Winston Cup racing but at that time the team had no sponsor lined up for the next season so I elected to go back to the Busch Series to drive two years for Cicci-Welliver.

I used those two years to kind of get back on track, but even those two seasons were sprinkled with the same stuff. We had great performances at times and at other times we really struggled.

So now I'm looking at myself in the mirror and saying, 'I guess I've been spoiled back in 1993 and '94 and '95, and that my expectations are maybe too high for the game at this day and time.'

I felt like maybe I would never, ever find the team that has the same expectations that Bobby and Terry and their father Bob bestowed onto me -- expectations of what it takes to win races and win championships.

I was looking in the mirror and saying, "It's really me."

So 2002 came, and I had no ride because our deal at Cicci-Welliver had the team reorganizing with a new owner. Our performance certainly hadn't dictated the sponsor staying, so that was about the toughest time in my whole career.

And lo and behold Ricky Hendrick retired. Rick Hendrick had asked me to go to Kansas because Ricky was having some trouble with his confidence, and some other lingering issues after his injury in Las Vegas.

	This crash at Dover threatened to derail Green's title run, but he has rallied in recent weeks.

Little did I know that a week later he announced his retirement, and Rick asked me to finish the season in his No. 5 GMAC Chevrolet.

Our first race was a year ago this past weekend, and that was a breakthrough and the beginning of a whole new career for me, personally.

If that had not happened, I'm a firm believer that Timber Wolf and Brewco maybe would have not looked in my direction or thought about me. Good things started to happen, and it was interesting that I never drove the 5 car like I was trying to get a job.

Somehow, some way or in some fashion the good Lord made me be myself -- the person that I was in 1993, '94 and '95 -- and all those other years, even though I was looking in the mirror thinking I was doing things wrong.

We went out and had awesome finishes, from the first race in Charlotte throughout the end of the year, and Brewco Motorsports owner Clarence Brewer and Timber Wolf and everybody was talking and one thing led to another and here we are.

If you bookend the beginning of my Busch career with where I am now in my Busch career, you have very good owners, in Clarence and Tammy Brewer; and obviously Bobby.

You bookend it with people and two teams that eat, breathe and sleep racing and know that to reach your goals there's a lot of hard work.

	Ricky Hendrick

To me that's what been so reassuring, is to get with a bunch of guys like I have at Brewco, that have the same cadence, the same confidence, the same chemistry and the same want-to that I had early on, when I was successful.

On that note, it's been a blessing that our prayers have been answered but there were surely some tough times when I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "Is it me?"

Those timeframes in between there were some good people and some good sponsors involved, there were some good teams but that old chemistry of everybody pulling together on the same rope the same amount made me more aware of it than ever before.

It's not to say that anybody wasn't doing their job, but everybody's got to pull together and chemistry means so much. Sometimes chemistry's better than a fast racecar.

When I was with Bobby's team, I never had to worry about the cars because I was there working on them every day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through the middle stages I didn't have that and sometimes felt uncomfortable with it.

Now, as we fast forward to the 37 Timber Wolf team, one thing that I can say about Jason Ratcliff my crew chief; Terry Shirley, who's been with Winston Cup teams; and Todd Wilkerson that runs the team from the front office -- is that we have everything we need and it's in the right place.

In years past I would have worn out the phone asking Jason about this and that, but I don't ever do that anymore. And the thing about it, I don't do it because there's not a need to.

There have been times when I've run races this season where I didn't know every little thing about the car. Back in the beginning, Bobby and Bob Labonte wanted me to know every little thing because they felt I would be a better driver.

I'm not saying now I'm too good a driver to know every little thing, but now I have someone there that wants it, as much or more than I do. From a driver's viewpoint, that's like winning a race every minute of the day throughout the week between each race.

Sometimes through the middle of my career I don't know that people sometimes weren't just tuning me out, and maybe rightfully so. But the confidence these Brewco guys have bestowed upon me is indescribable, from Clarence Brewer on down, and to me that is a huge part of our success.

I believed in these guys before we ever started and I continually raise the bar up for these guys; and they continue to go over my bar of expectations.

To me, that is why the bookends of my career, to this date, are such a mirrored reflection of one another. And I can promise you I will never differ off of this road ever again as long as my career will take me.

No matter how these final five races play out, I can sit here today and say that I've been treated to the most fun, action-packed season of my career. It's been a winning season so far and next year looks like more of the same so that explains why I've been totally happy, week in and week out.