SCR: Do you feel this is your time to come back?Green: Oh yeah. I think so. I think we have proved that through the first five or six races we ran with the Cup guys last year. I think the guys accept me a lot more than they did in '97 and '98. I think they trust me more. Hopefully, what they have seen me do Saturday in the Busch car and what I have already done on Sunday with them, they trust me more and accept me a little more.
SCR: I am sure there is some talk about you coming back to the Winston Cup Series at the age of 39. How do you feel about these guys starting at such a young age?Green: I didn't get into Busch racing until '90 when I was about 27 or 28. Some of these guys are getting into Winston Cup racing at 18 and 19 years old. My experience may just be more mature. Basically it is learning to not let things bother you as much and let things come to you. I think that will help me more than not. You have to be pretty excited to run in the Winston Cup Series. You have to be up on the wheel these days and run every lap like it's your last to be able to win these races.
SCR: Do you feel you have to be on top of your game the entire race?Green: The Darrell Waltrip days of riding around and getting after it at the end of the race are over. Even the veterans, Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace, are up on the wheel every lap of the race now. I think the cars, the tires, and everything in our sport has changed where you can do that every lap. You used to have to conserve your tires and your car to make it to the end of the race. Now the motors and the car are better where you don't have to conserve everything to make it to the end of a 500-mile race. It is a credit to the teams and all the guys putting these motors and cars together.
SCR: After an incident at Bristol with Kevin Harvick in the Busch race, you said, "If he wants to win races like that, that's fine. But, that is not how Jeff Green does it. I'll finish second before I do that." Do you still feel that way?Green: Oh yeah. I won last year in the Busch race at Dover and I didn't touch a soul. I guess, when it gets right down to the last lap, it all depends on who is in front of you. If Kevin Harvick is in front of me, yeah, I am going to turn him sideways to win. If it is my brother or someone like Elton Sawyer who races me clean every week, I am not going to do that to him. He doesn't do it to me.
SCR: What kind of goals have you set for this year?Green: Really, just being competitive every week is my goal. I think we will have a Top-10 team every week. I will be disappointed if we aren't in the Top 15 in points at the end of the year. I believe this is a goal we can meet, and I think RCR and AOL want it to be even better than that. I want to set my goals high, but I don' t want to be disappointed at the end of the year. This is a tough, tough series. It is a lot tougher than the Busch Series. The Busch Series is tough, but you are dealing with 10 or 15 cars you have to beat every week instead of 30 in the Cup Series. The odds of winning races go down. We are just going to try to do the best job we can and hopefully win our share of races. We have three great teams at RCR. The No. 29 has already won a couple of races. There is no reason why we can't run as good as those guys. We have all the same stuff. It is all about working together and being consistent every week.