Notes: Green enjoys new role as test driver for HMS

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Never in his wildest imagination did David Green think he'd ever get so much satisfaction out of being a test pilot -- and he's glad, as 2008 gets into full swing, he was a little ignorant of the importance of his role in Hendrick Motorsports' ongoing success story.

"If I knew then, what I know now, I probably would have felt a lot more pressure when we were doing all that testing with the Car of Tomorrow last year," said Green, the 1994 Busch Series champion who is now Hendrick's primary test driver.

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Green did hundreds and hundreds of development miles for Hendrick's Car of Tomorrow program, with which Hendrick -- which won 18 of 36 total races -- won nine of 16 COT outings last season.

"The satisfaction I've gotten from doing this [testing] is tremendous -- it's as close to racing as you can get," Green said. "I never dreamed I would get the notoriety and the thanks for doing this kind of work, and it's very flattering."

The wave continued this weekend for Green, who spent three days at Daytona International Speedway working with the No. 5 JR Motorsports team that's the result of a Nationwide Series alliance between Rick Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Green spent the first two-and-half days of the three-day Preseason Thunder test working on single car runs and car setups for its owner, who flew in to take part in drafting runs Sunday afternoon.

Green got the car good enough to where it was second quickest on the single-car cumulative speed sheet after three days of testing, of the 38 drivers who participated in single-car runs. But he was more enthused about something else.

"I was excited and maybe a little bit relieved that as I'd told him what I felt, when he went out and ran the car, his comments mirrored that," Green said. "So that made me feel good. We did some things to calm the car down, that we ended up undoing this morning prior to Junior getting here.

"And then he took it a step further, which we kind of knew would happen, because he's got a style and a feel that he wants. My feel of the baseline and his feel of the baseline was identical, so job accomplished for our team to do that prior to him getting here."

Earnhardt Jr. ended up fourth on the afternoon drafting sheet, behind Brad Coleman's No. 27 Baker Curb Racing Ford. JR Motorsports' lead driver, Brad Keselowski, was second-fastest in the drafting session.

"We did two long runs with him in drafting and he was very happy with it," Green said. "Bottom line, too, is that no doubt [Earnhardt Jr.] is one of the best restrictor plate drivers out there, and there were some things I learned today, just watching him, and listening to him, that makes me better able to understand what makes him so successful here."

Green was most enthused about the opportunity to do more work with, and for Earnhardt moving ahead in his role as Hendrick's COT test pilot, which Green has a test coming up in at Rockingham Speedway.

"As a test driver, especially in the COT program, if I can be even remotely close to what those drivers want to feel in their cars, then that's my goal," Green said. "This is my first time working with Junior, so I'm very excited about the COT testing we do, because now I have a baseline on what his feel is, and what he wants."

RWI steps up

Team owner Rusty Wallace spent a lot of Sunday sitting inside Turn 1 at Daytona International Speedway in his rental car, watching his two new Chevrolets, the No. 66 driven by his son Steve and the No. 64 driven by new Rusty Wallace Inc. driver David Stremme, turn laps.

S. Wallace

Wallace did everything from listen to exhaust notes to monitor driving lines before heading back to the garage area to debrief with his teams at the end of the day.

"We've really stepped up this year -- but we had to," Wallace said. "Thanks to Atreus Homes and Chevrolet, we're going to run two cars for the entire season; we built all brand-new cars; we hired Harold Holly as our crew chief to work with Steve; we've got three engineers; and we've already been in the wind tunnel five times and we're just getting on the racetrack."

Can-do crew chief

Hand it to former engineer Dave Rogers to have a totally thumbs-up attitude, despite having to have an intricate system in place to figure out who's driving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for which he'll serve as crew chief this season.

Tony Stewart will be in the No. 20 nine teams this season, including the Daytona season opener, with JGR development driver Joey Logano in it for 20 races. The balance of the schedule will be handled by Gibbs' two other Sprint Cup drivers, Denny Hamlin (four races) and Kyle Busch (twice).

The icing on the cake came when Rogers worked the last three days at Preseason Thunder with JGR's driver development driver coach, former national Modified champion Mike McLaughlin.

"Under these circumstances, it's fine," Rogers said. "Mike is a good personal friend of mine, so it's fun to work with him. I was Tony Stewart's race engineer for a number of years, so I'm familiar with both drivers for this test and the Daytona race.

"If you look at the driver lineup for the season, I don't have a whole lot to complain about. I get to work with some of the most talented drivers in the business. Most people won't have an opportunity to work with the caliber drivers I will get to this year."

Uncertain future

Nationwide Series veteran Jason Keller, who owns the series' mark for starts with 422, hopes he increases that by at least one at Daytona's Speedweeks. Keller came to Daytona on Sunday to test with CJM Racing, but sponsor uncertainties have both him and the team fluttering like a flag in a high wind.

"Coming down to test there is a little bit of an uncertainty," Keller said. "CJM, we've been looking for a sponsor since the team's inception last April. We had plans to run the first part of the season but when you're looking for sponsors, sometimes sponsors come with drivers [and] I don't know if that's going to work in my favor.

"Some things have popped up of late that could slow my progress down in the Nationwide Series. We'll see how that plays out."

The team initially planned to do the first 10 races of the season to see how its sponsor search played out, and Keller, who made 21 starts in the former Busch Series in 2007 with Brewco Motorsports and the start-up CJM team, has no idea how that will affect his status.

"I wish I knew to the answer to that," Keller said. "It was 10 races but I really don't know. There are some things that could take me out of those 10 but there are some things that could leave me in those 10. I'm really uncertain. I wanted to come down here and test because I want to do everything I can do to prepare for those 10 if there are 10."