Tech Q&A: Harold Holly
By Troy Fletcher, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
September 25, 2001
4:30 PM EDT (2030 GMT)
For the past two-plus seasons, Harold Holly has been one of the best crew chiefs in the Busch Series.
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Harold Holly and Jeff Green celebrate a victory.
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Since teaming up with driver Jeff Green and ppc racing in 1999, the duo has been amazing. During that time span, Holly and Green have registered 12 wins, 53 top-five finishes and won 13 pole positions.
Most importantly, with Holly as his wrench boss and director of race operations, Green won the Busch Series championship in 2000, thanks to a BGN-record 25 top-five performances.
A year earlier, Holly guided Green to a second-place finish in the points. What's more, Holly and Green are coming off a great effort last weekend, which culminated with them celebrating in Victory Lane at Dover Downs, leaving them third in the championship chase.
Saturday's race is the Busch Series' first at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile tri-oval track with 15-degree banking in the turns.
Q: Has your team tested at Kansas Speedway? And what is the most similar track to Kansas Speedway on the Busch Series circuit?
A: We have not tested there at all. But from everybody we have talked to, they say it is real close to the same setup as Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Kentucky Speedway, and those are two tracks we have very good databases from.
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Defending champion Jeff Green is third in the points.
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(At Las Vegas, Green has won and been a consistent top-10 placer, while at Kentucky, Green qualified second and ran into some bad luck before finishing 31st on June 16.)
Q: How big is Thursday going to be for your team, since it will be the first time you guys will get to run laps at the track?
A: That obviously is going to be a very important day for us. We want to use that practice session to figure how fast the car can go, what kind of gear ratio we will be looking at and what the maximum and minimum speeds in the corners will be. Once we get all that figured out, we will be doing a lot of cross-referencing with our notes from Las Vegas and Kentucky.
Q: Now that the Busch Series has expanded to new tracks, like Kansas Speedway, does it make a crew chief's job harder?
A: It is a big challenge for us to race at a new track like Kansas Speedway and I kind of like the fact that everybody is on the same level playing field. And in the past it seems like our team has been able to adapt and have success a lot faster at newer tracks than most teams.
Q: How big a role is Jeff going to play in getting the right setup at Kansas Speedway?
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The No. 10 ppc racing team in action.
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A: Jeff's instincts are vital to the success of our team. As soon as our car rolls off the truck, he will be going as fast as the tires will let him go. And he always gives me great feedback on what the tires are doing, whether they are slick or gripping well or whatever. And that is a big help in the effort to get the right setup.
Q: Is there one thing you will be looking at during testing and qualifying at Kansas?
A: No, there is not ONE thing I will be concentrating on. The biggest thing we will try to do during practice and qualifying is get the car to have the right balance.
We can adapt to the conditions of race-day, and that is something we don't mind doing. But we want to have the right balance for the car, before we get to race day.
The car we are taking to Kansas is one that we tested last week at Charlotte and it tested excellent there. So we are excited about what it can do at Kansas.
Q: Since Jeff has a daunting task to try and catch points leader Kevin Harvick, have you guys lost any of your determination to repeat as champions?
A: Not at all. We are still approaching each weekend with the same goals. That is, first to get the pole and second win the race. Plus we wouldn't mind being the fastest in practice, either.
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