Green began 2003 by winning the pole for the Daytona 500 and had a seventh-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, but otherwise failed to finish higher than 20th and crashed twice. After an incident with teammate Harvick at Richmond, Richard Childress Racing fired Green on May 5. Two days later, he was picked up by DEI to drive the No. 1 Pennzoil-sponsored Chevrolet, replacing Steve Park, who was hired by Childress to drive the No. 30. Green fared no better than 16th in 12 races and was replaced by John Andretti. He was also replaced in the road-course races by Ron Fellows. In reaction, Green said he was not given the opportunity to improve the situation. After missing three races, Green drove the No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker-sponsored Dodge Intrepid for Petty Enterprises in the Dover 400 after the original driver, Christian Fittipaldi, had a commitment to drive the No. 44 in four races. After driving the Dodge again in the EA Sports 500 the next week, he became the driver for the rest of the season on a race-to-race basis. Green's best finish with the team was 16th at Dover International Speedway; team owner Richard Petty expressed anticipation that the team could work well together after a few months. Green finished 34th in the points standings, and was signed to drive full time for the team for the next season.