David Green: "The coolest thing is to be asked a question by one of these ('young guns'), and when the guy asks you a question and you discuss things about a racetrack and he comes back and wants it more." Credit: Autostock

Insider's View: D. Green

Tonight is the Busch Series banquet and as I look forward to celebrating the end of another season, the first thing I have to do is say goodbye to a great sponsor in Timber Wolf.

Not only have they spent the last 10 years with Brewco Motorsports, they've spent 10 years in the Busch Series. When they came into NASCAR they stuck with one team and they've stayed in one series, and I think they were very proud to be there as everyone in the Busch Series was to have them.

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It's not going to be the same, not having that Wolf car out there, so I have to say thanks to those folks for enabling Brewco to get to where they're at.

I think as you see the series continue to grow, through tobacco regulations or what have you, sponsors have been moved around, or moved out, but thank goodness they haven't moved out 40-year-olds from the drivers' lineup.

I feel very fortunate to join up with Kleenex for the 2005 season, which again is a sponsor that's going to be starting its 11th year of being a mainstay in the Busch Series. So that makes me very proud to go from one veteran sponsor to another veteran sponsor, not to mention a sponsor that is probably deserving of a lot of race wins and a championship.

And that's what we're hoping will happen in 2005. We've got a lot of cool things happening, with moving over to the No. 27 car for Clarence Brewer, to drive for Kleenex and with the Ford Motor Company coming onboard to be a part of Brewco for many years to come.

In 2005 my whole No. 37 team from last year will now become the crew on our No. 27 Kleenex Ford. With Greg Biffle being announced as my teammate for most of the combination races, driving the No. 66 Duraflame Ford, I'm thinking, "Wow, now theoretically I do have a direction connection to a Cup outfit, Greg's Roush Racing organization."

Credit: Autostock

To be quite honest, Greg's the kind of guy that I'm excited about getting hooked up with. Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin have been great leaders in the Busch Series, I felt like, in the past. They were guys that I could really pull some information off of.

Mark Martin, I feel like, single-handedly has manicured a lot of drivers in the Busch Series. To have Biffle as a teammate will be very encouraging for my team and myself, because Brewco will have two Busch champions as teammates, which I think is unprecedented.

Clarence and Tammy Brewer should be very proud of that and I'm proud to be one of the guys on the deal. Just like when Johnny Sauter joined our team last year, I knew that he was an aggressive young man who was going to keep me on my toes.

It's the same with Biffle. He's very aggressive and he's one of those guys that's all about the wins and doesn't look at the big picture and I think that's going to help my game. I feel like us as a pair can lean on one another and help each other.

I'm absolutely already thinking of ways that we can maximize that support, together. I know that Ford Motor Company is already thinking about it as well, because that's one thing that they said, prior to the conclusion of the Homestead weekend.

Ford felt like their engine program and the whole package had gotten on the game, you might say, in the Cup Series with Mark and Kurt and all those guys up there fighting it out, so the next step, for them, was to make the Busch Series that way.

I'm very, very excited to have their support and their enthusiasm and their guidance, off the racetrack, and I feel like Biffle and I can handle it the rest of the way.

It's a point of my career where I say, "I can drive another year," and "I can drive another year" and "I can driver another year." I've told Rick Hendrick that between he and Ricky Hendrick they were solely responsible for prolonging my career, and now Clarence and Tammy Brewer has continued to do that.

We hope we can rebound to where we were in 2003, and we know we can. It was such a disappointment this year, but not at the beginning, though. I can remember leaving Texas Motor Speedway in April and the 37 Timber Wolf team was leading the points and we were right where we wanted to be.

Our team was working so well, just like last year, and about that time engine issues set in, and that old saying, "When it rains, it pours," hit us. We just never could recover from all that stuff.

But we've got a lot of excitement coming with our team, coming back. The number one obstacle, I think, for the Busch teams has been the influence of the Nextel Cup teams in our division.

It's not so much Cup drivers, which is what the focus used to be: We don't want them here, they're "Buschwhackers", or whatever. Now it's more on the ownership side.

Credit: Autostock

Now, don't get me wrong, because every time I say this people will come back and say, "There's David Green whining about the Cup teams." As a driver, everybody wants to be in a position, whether it's Martin Truex or Brian Vickers or a Kyle Busch or even the Ganassi gang -- a Reed Sorenson.

They want to have that support that you get when you're affiliated with a Cup owner. That is all of our dreams, but we all can't have that. And I'm proud to say that, with my personality and where I'm at in my career, the perfect team for me is Brewco Motorsports and the guys I have up there in Central City, Ky.

So with all that being said, the complexion and personality of the series has really changed. You see guys like Hornaday and Bliss moving on so a lot of the guys that are not youngsters, you might say, are not going to be there.

I know Kenny Wallace and myself I guess could be considered the elder statesmen. But that's OK. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity that my team presents to me, to be competitive.

And as we're competitive, I promise you, it makes you feel 20 years younger so I feel like I'm right in there with those guys, age wise. But we suffered a little bit on the engine front.

DEI pitched in at the end of 2003 on the engine side and kept us on an even playing field with Brian Vickers and the 5 car. We didn't have that luxury this year, but the never give up attitude of my team, and my owner and Timber Wolf, enabled us to fight to the very end, even though we went up in a cloud of smoke in Homestead, and fell two positions in the points, back to seventh.

BUSCH AWARDS CEREMONY •   Who: Top 10 drivers in the NASCAR Busch Series championship standings, led by champion Martin Truex Jr.  •   Where: Tuscan Ballroom, Portofino Bay Hotel, Orlando, Fla.  •   What: NASCAR Busch Series Awards Ceremony  •   When: 7-10:30 p.m. ET Friday  •   TV: TNT (tape-delay), 12 a.m. ET Dec. 14  •   Special Guest: Comedian Gary Gulman, finalist on NBC's "Last Comic Standing"  •   Musical Entertainment: Collective Soul  •   Emcee/Interview Chair: Matt Yocum/Danielle Frye

That was devastating. That was devastating, but at the same time, I think that tough seasons make a champion, and make a championship team so I've got high hopes for 2005.

Ford Motor Company has stepped up in the Busch Series and I'm tickled to death that they've chosen our team and I know that they know that we'll give them 110 percent and showcase the Ford name proudly.

We're awful appreciative of what they've already done for us, and looking into the future at next season and knowing that Robert and Doug Yates are working diligently underneath the hood for our efforts.

Everybody involved with the aero program has stepped up, and watching Kurt Busch and Mark Martin be so competitive in the Chase for the Nextel Cup makes me very excited about next year.

Competing means competing against the younger guys who have come into our sport, like Martin Truex and Kyle Busch and Reed Sorenson. It's exciting and it's fun and it puts a good feeling in you.

Brian Vickers and I got to be friends a couple years ago, and he and I were buddies and we would talk.

The coolest thing is to be asked a question by one of these guys, and when the guy asks you a question and you discuss things about a racetrack and he comes back and wants it more, to me is very satisfying and makes me feel very good.

You know, I might just have to finish second to him today, or I might have just finished second to him that day or the previous week. But that's OK.

Reed Sorenson, I can remember racing with his dad, Brad -- an excellent racecar driver who I enjoyed racing with. I can remember Reed just being my son's age, just three or four years old.

Now, to see all that happen and before I figure out that that makes me old, I've figured out that there's a young man that people might not say that he's paid his dues, but his father has paid his dues and his father put him the right position to capitalize on an opportunity, and here it happened.

The whole key to these things, and Kyle Busch is the same way. These guys are great drivers, like Martin Truex. I knew he was going to be an excellent driver because he paid his dues with his father and their own organization.

Credit: Autostock

So when they get tied in with a great organization like a DEI or a Hendrick or a Ganassi, to me that takes the place of having to learn, say, 10 years of racing. Then again, people are going to say, "There he goes again, whining about that Cup deal."

But it's all about the resources. As we have better equipment, we can do our job easier and if we put the same effort into better equipment, we do better. I think it's just a mark of their ability, and being very good when they come in, but the fact that they've got with some great teams and eliminate a lot of the headaches and growing pains and a lot of that.

There's nothing wrong with that. The only thing wrong with that is when people say, "He's young enough to be your son," or something like that. That becomes a topic that we talk about. But for the most part, these guys are more than qualified.

And eventually when those guys pass you -- like last year when we'd be having a problem or something and you'd get passed and you wouldn't finish where we thought we should finish and we'd see all those young cats up there and think, 'that's just not fair.'

But that's just the way things go, and that's the new changing face of the Busch Series.

And I'm proud to say, too, that when I came into it the heroes were Tommy Ellis and Tommy Houston and Jack Ingram -- God, I know I'm going to miss out on somebody -- but those guys, I'm sure they looked at me like, "What's this young guy going to do?"

Even though I was 30-something, I wasn't young like they are nowadays, but it's the same deal. It's fun to watch them do that, but it's really fun when I can beat them -- when they're behind me, and when they come and ask you a question, that's very satisfying.

Of course, you struggle sometimes because you've got to tell them something, and you think, "Did I tell them the right things?" But I've got to. I told Brian all the right things and I'm very proud how Brian Vickers became a champion.

And you know what? I finished second to him and that's satisfying to me personally, just like it is to race so well with my Brewco team against the young guys we'll battle next season.