Insider's View: David Green

Veteran driver reflects on 300 Busch Series starts

Gosh, 300 starts covers a long time, and there are a lot of events, a lot of accomplishments but maybe most importantly a lot of personalities that have touched my career and me in that time.

It's hard to say that 300, which some could argue is just a number, could sneak up on you, over a 13- or 14-year period, but it kinda did. It was similar to when we all raced go-karts -- my brothers, Mark and Jeff, and I.

	David Green started from the pole and finished third last weekend at Dover. Credit: Autostock

I don't think we ever set down and told each other, 'hey, we're going to be Busch Series drivers one day, or Cup drivers.' And lo and behold did I ever think I would have the opportunity to be the champion of the series, which I was able to do in 1994 with Bobby Labonte Racing.

And Jeff, it meant the same thing when he won the Busch championship in 2000. For him, it's pretty darned cool to be driving for Richard Petty and it was the same, in my case, when I raced for Bobby Labonte.

To make 300 starts never even occurred to me. I just wanted to be the best that I could be on that particular day because who ever knew what the future might bring, around the corner.

The biggest lessons I've learned? Really, I didn't realize it when it happened, but back in the beginning, going with Mike Alexander when he was splitting time between Busch and Cup, and qualifying his cars -- I really didn't feel any pressure, but in reality there was a ton of pressure on me.

I think that was instrumental in helping me to develop my sense of what was going on, the importance of qualifying and all that. That helped me go to Daytona for the first time and sit on the pole.

But the effects of pressure really hit home in 1991, when I was driving Fil Martocci's car and we won in the seventh race of the season, as a rookie. That was pretty cool because even someone like Dale Earnhardt Jr., in his great equipment, took him maybe 20-some races before he won.

But about a month later, we went to Hickory, and I missed the race -- didn't qualify. Back then there were 60 cars showing up. We had a good team, we were stacked, but for whatever reason I blinked and we missed the race.

DAVID GREEN  •  Driver Page  •  2004 Stats  •  Biography  •  Video Highlights  •  Driver vs. Driver

So that was a huge reality check right then and thank goodness it never happened from that point on.

But the competition was so stiff and there were so many cars that the series made you excel, unlike today, when guys coming in -- I don't want to say they have it easy, but they need to experience the time when there were 60 cars showing up.

You know, 55 of those cars were good cars. I can remember Dale Earnhardt missing the race at Richmond one spring and he'd just got through winning the Goody's 300 at Daytona. The series was awful competitive.

What's a low point? Maybe the end of 1991 when we didn't have a sponsor and I was about a half-inch away from staying in Kentucky, figuring maybe I wasn't cut out for this. And then Bobby Labonte called me and drug me over to North Carolina to be a part of his team.

It was maybe the best move I ever made in racing. I spent one year with his team, 1992, maybe a lot like 2002 ended up showing me. I worked for Bobby's team and never drove. I just worked and watched and listened and learned.

Man, it couldn't have been written any better because as soon as I stepped into those cars, just like I did at the end of 2002 when I got in Ricky Hendrick's car, after sitting on the sidelines watching, spotting for Dale Jarrett and hoping and praying I'd get a shot.

Now, with Brewco and these Timber Wolf cars, I'm able to get another shot and to use all the stuff I've stored up in my mind. It's been real positive, because in reality the critics might've said, 'David Green's career is over in the Busch Series -- yeah, he was a champion, won a few races -- but that book's closed, let's move on.'

With Brewco and Timber Wolf giving me a shot, it's got a few of those people scratching their heads and saying, 'maybe not quite yet, is it over.' It's pretty cool to have some neat bookends like that to my career, not that this is my final bookend.

But you have to go back to the beginning, when I think of all these starts and all these years.

	David Green said when he started racing, he had no idea he'd get to 300 Busch Series starts, much less win the series championship. Credit: Autostock

I remember working with Wayne Day in Nashville in the 1980s and hanging with Mike (Alexander), who was from that area and running the Busch Series in the Action Vans No. 84.

I remember him coming to Nashville and I got a real dose of Busch Series racing through Mike. When Bobby Allison, unfortunately, got hurt at Pocono in 1988. That gave Mike an opportunity in Winston Cup that gave me my first break.

Mike got tapped to replace Bobby in his Miller Buick and he needed somebody to go to six or eight races and have somebody qualify his Busch car while he would fly in for the races from the Cup race.

So there, you had a little bit of Buschwhacking going on even in the late 1980s and early '90s.

So on that note, I got to do some stuff, like practice and qualify those cars for Mike, under some tough situations. I had to qualify them and get them ready for the races and I had never even run any Busch cars.

Back then you had guys like Tommy Houston, Jack Ingram, Tommy Ellis and Larry Pearson -- and let me tell you, they were good in those cars. I can remember going to places like Louisville and Langley Field in Virginia and those cars were just beasts on those little, bitty ol' racetracks.

And Tommy Houston and Tommy Ellis and those guys -- I mean, Tommy Ellis, especially, was like a gorilla inside that car. He drove the heck out of that car.

I got to hang with those guys a lot, really for the first time and I got a start on learning what it meant to be a professional race car driver. To me, Tommy Houston was an all-around Busch Series kind of driver and a true professional.

I say that because he appreciated the series, he did a lot of things that were productive for the series, even back then and he portrayed an image that I thought was very cool.

I hoped that, as I went through my career, even at that time never knowing how long it would last, that I could someday just kinda be looked upon like Tommy Houston was back in those days.

I think sometimes that maybe a lot of the people, and a lot of the guys that are racing now don't even know about Tommy Houston and those other guys from that era. Maybe they know he's Andy and Marty Houston's dad -- who are racing in the Craftsman Truck Series.

	David Green spends some time with Stacy Compton earlier this season at Bristol. Credit: Autostock

But I can remember Tommy being instrumental in painting the image that I felt like you needed to have to run in this series and to be successful.

To get to 300 starts and to think back on those years and what I went through, racing against D.W., and Big E -- everybody involved, is almost mind-boggling.

It was such a big part of my career and it helped me to break into this series productively and I remember Tommy Houston and Tommy Ellis and all those guys -- but especially Tommy Houston, were always more than helpful to get the new guy through some tough times.

In the time I've been racing, the Busch Series has transitioned from a series that used to be dominated by short tracks to the point that now, most of the venues are a variety of speedways, from Rockingham and Loudon, N.H., to Daytona and Talladega.

Ellis and Houston and Ingram and those guys were the kings of short tracks when I started. We all grew up racing on short tracks, so when I first went to the bigger tracks I was kind of in awe of it all.

But you know, Tommy and Tommy and Jack and all those guys ran good on those tracks, too. And that made me think that there is an opportunity that I could become a big-track driver, because when I went into the Busch Series, I felt like I only had a shot on the small tracks.

To look at what those guys accomplished -- I mean, Tommy Houston is still the Busch Series qualifying record holder at Daytona -- it gave you hope and belief that even I could become a big-track driver.

In 1991-92 and '93 -- even right up through '96, we ran a lot of the Orange County Speedways and South Bostons and Myrtle Beaches, Hickorys -- and that was such a nice transition for me getting involved in the series because those were my kind of racetracks.

We saw a lot of guys get opportunities, like Dennis Setzer, who was a champion at Hickory, and the list goes on and on -- but they got opportunities because the series would visit those kinds of tracks, where they were running on a regular basis.

	David Green leads the field to begin last weekend's Busch race at Dover. Green finished third. Credit: Autostock

Then, the series took a whole 'nother turn and we lost those kinds of tracks. It seems like we just don't entertain the short tracks anymore. That's tough because I think racing at those tracks we touched a lot of fans that were true Busch Series fans, but now we're doing it a little bit different.

I guess maybe the best way to describe it, is that it's just a change of the times.

The short tracks have kind of went away and the series has kind of become, as people might say, a victim of our own success. But with that being said, I know the future of the sport is healthy because we're going to these big, new venues now and the kids are coming in and running, and they're getting in great, top-notch equipment.

That's interesting to me because I'm sure that Tommy Ellis and Tommy Houston and those cats looked at me the first time I came into the series and asked, 'who's this young guy coming into our series,' even though, heck, I was gray even then.

But then, I wasn't really a youngster -- I wasn't 18. Now, it's just changed completely with the Kyle Busches and Brian Vickerses and those kinds of guys, who are not only great drivers, but they're getting saddled up on some pretty powerful horses -- and they're riding 'em pretty good.

Could I still get a shot today like I did back when I started? I'd like to think that I could. But you can't replace time with what we've learned in the past -- we've got to move forward.

It's a whole different deal but we're still getting good drivers but I've always said, and I'll say it again: There's thousands of drivers across the Dodge Weekly Racing Series that can do the job that it takes in the Busch Series and the Truck Series and in Cup.

But it takes just being in the right place at the right time. And those small tracks gave us the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.

I had no great expectations when I got started, but before I knew it, I was battling with the best drivers in NASCAR and I was involved in a series that really made you feel welcome and gave you an opportunity to race and thanks to guys like Mike Alexander and Wayne Day, I got an opportunity to get a start at it.

I can tell you one thing -- it's been a fun time through that 300.

Heck, the way I feel right now, I vowed to Clarence Brewer, my owner, that I think we can make it 100 more. So in reality, that will put me another couple years after this one, still driving, and we'll see what happens then.