{"id":103028,"date":"2025-10-20T13:31:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=103028"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:31:38","slug":"mike-green-to-lead-elite-motorsports-top-fuel-nhra-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/mike-green-to-lead-elite-motorsports-top-fuel-nhra-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Green to lead Elite Motorsports\u2019 Top Fuel NHRA team"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike Green is joining Elite Motorsports to head its nitro operations – Elite Motorsports photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Championship winning Top Fuel crew chief Mike Green is on the move. Until the close of this year\u2019s Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex, Green has been the crew chief for Justin Ashley\u2019s dragster program; Ashley currently occupies second place in the standings with two races left to go: at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and on the In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, CA.<\/p>\n

Green, who engineered Tony Schumacher to a pair of his eight NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel championships, joined Ashley\u2019s enterprise in 2020 when it was named Dustin David Motorsports, as co-crew chief with Tommy DeLago, who now becomes the lead crew chief for Ashley. Green worked to elevate the start-up to the position they\u2019re currently occupying in the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs, just 141 points behind Kalitta Motorsports\u2019 Doug Kalitta. Ashley was the runner-up in Charlotte and fell to Brittany Force at Texas in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

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Tommy DeLago retakes crew chief duties for Justin Ashley – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elite Motorsports announced on Friday, October 17th that Green will be the team leader for its Top Fuel enterprise, one that will see Tony Stewart in the team\u2019s dragster for NHRA\u2019s 75th anniversary season next year. \u201cWe had conversations with a handful of potential crew chiefs over the past several weeks, all great options,\u201d revealed Richard Freeman, Elite Motorsports team owner. \u201cWhen Mike and I talked after the Dallas event, it felt like a natural fit, for both of us. We\u2019re excited to have him on board.<\/p>\n

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Richard Freeman spoke with several potential crew chiefs before choosing MIke Green – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMike is a hall of fame caliber crew chief,\u201d Freeman asserted, \u201cwho has proven he\u2019s capable of putting together a program to win championships. That\u2019s what we\u2019re after. He\u2019s known for elevating those around him and we have that same growth mentally here at Elite Motorsports.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he did with Justin Ashley\u2019s program, Green will be active in every aspect of building a winning Top Fuel team around Stewart. he is also charged with developing an expanded program to license a pair of Elite Motorsports Pro Stock standouts during the 2026 campaign: Aaron Stanfield and six-time champion Erica Enders. With Freeman\u2019s growth intentions, Green will serve as the cornerstone in Elite\u2019s vision, in which it intends to cultivate future nitro racing leaders.<\/p>\n

Mike Green, who grew up in Sacramento, California, first started working in NHRA\u2019s professional ranks in 1987 as a member of Darrell Gwynn\u2019s Top Fuel squad. Since that time, he has tuned both Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters, the former with Tommy Johnson and the latter for Cory McClenathan, Tony Schumacher at Don Schumacher Racing, with Austin Prock at John Force Racing and Ashley for SCAG Racing.<\/p>\n

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Mike Green helped Tony Schumacher to two Top Fuel titles at Don Schumacher Racing – Anne Proffit photo (2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It took less than a week for Elite Motorsports and Mike Green to align as partners. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be joining Elite Motorsports and to help them build their Top Fuel program,\u201d Green said. \u201cWith talent like Tony Stewart, Erica Enders and Aaron Stanfield being in the mix, this was an opportunity I couldn\u2019t pass up. I look forward to being part of Elite, and Richard\u2019s vision to grow the sport.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201ci\u2019ve enjoyed working with Justin these past few years,\u201d Green said of the driver he\u2019s led to four 2025 wins. \u201cHe\u2019s a brilliant driver and I\u2019m disappointed I won\u2019t have the opportunity to see him through to the end of the 2025 season. I wish him and the guys all the best of luck. I\u2019ll be rooting for them. Now Im looking ahead to 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Green\u2019s tenure as crew chief for Elite’s new Top Fuel team starts immediately, as Elite Motorsports prepares for the 75th anniversary season-starter NHRA Gatornationals the first weekend of March 2026, which takes place on the Gainesville Raceway dragstrip in Florida.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Championship winning Top Fuel crew chief Mike Green is on the move. Until the close of this year\u2019s Texas NHRA FallNationals , Green has been the crew chief for Justin Ashley\u2019s dragster program. Now, he’s heading to Elite.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":103032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029],"tags":[9275,1259,574,1704,3477,3348,9966,7,6483,11785,12675,1192],"class_list":["post-103028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-aaron-stanfield","tag-countdown-to-the-championship","tag-don-schumacher-racing","tag-elite-motorsports","tag-erica-enders","tag-mike-green","tag-mission-foods-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-richard-freeman","tag-scag-racing","tag-tommy-delago","tag-tony-stewart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Green-at-work-Elite-pic-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-qNK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103038,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103028\/revisions\/103038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}