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Meg, I liked the flowers, too! Especially the gold/yellow one. I would much much rather look at those than the wrecks. I opened one of the wrecks and ignored...
Jeff Burton darts to victory as other frontrunners fall victim to crash, mechanical woes
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin all had chances to win in the final laps of the Food City 500. It was their race to lose.
And they did.
Things happen fast at Bristol, and in the span of a few whirlwind laps, Stewart, Harvick and Hamlin all saw their hopes of victory crumble. Stewart and Harvick made contact while battling for second on lap 499, sending the race into overtime, where leader Hamlin promptly had a fuel pickup problem, handing the lead – and the win – to Jeff Burton.
Burton is well respected by his peers for his driving style and personality, so few would say he didn’t deserve to win at Bristol Motor Speedway for the first time in 29 attempts. He has come close before – he led 263 laps and finished ninth in August 2006 and could have punted Kyle Busch for the victory but settled for second in this race last year.
With many Bristol races just a matter of survival, Burton simply survived better than anyone else on a day when a track-record 42 cars were running at the finish.
“I won’t lose sleep tonight because somebody says, ‘We had a faster car,’” Burton said. “All I know is we got the trophy. That’s what we came here to do. We did what it took to get it.”
Burton led a 1-2-3 parade of Richard Childress Racing cars across the finish line, the first time that RCR has swept the top three in a race. Harvick salvaged second while Clint Bowyer was third.
“A lot of time, just to have three cars finish Bristol is amazing,” team owner Richard Childress said.
The RCR drivers combined to lead 125 laps, which sounds impressive until you consider that Stewart led 267. He took the lead on lap 415 and held off Harvick until a caution with nine laps remaining bunched the field and set up what could have been a five-lap showdown. Stewart, Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. stayed on the track on old tires while Harvick, Greg Biffle, Burton and Bowyer pitted for fresh rubber.
Stewart seemed to get a good restart, but Hamlin passed him a lap later. With less than two laps to go and Harvick bearing down on Stewart for second, the two touched while racing side by side in Turn 2, sending Stewart spinning and allowing Burton to go by Harvick, setting up a green-white-checkered finish.
As the green flag waved for the final restart, Hamlin suffered a fuel pickup problem and Burton blew by, cruising to the win.
“I swerved all I could to try to get fuel in the pickup and it just won’t pick it up,” said a disappointed Hamlin, who led 98 laps and battled back after getting clipped while leading on lap 280. “It’s frustrating. We have the best car … on these short tracks and don’t finish the job.”
Stewart also was dejected but didn’t know who to be disappointed with. His team’s decision not to take tires? Or Harvick, a friend whom he believed was at fault for the accident? Or did he cut down on Harvick?
“I thought I left him plenty of room, but I don’t know,” Stewart said. “I was far enough ahead of him that I didn’t see where he hit me or when he hit me. I’m sure somehow it was my fault. I’m just sorry I got in his way.”
Harvick wouldn’t let Stewart take the blame, saying he “lost it” and “just made a mistake.”
“It was mine to lose at that point and I lost it,” Harvick said. “I got up under there with three or four laps to go. … It’s just time to go. I clipped the apron [and] just lost the thing.
“It’s not like, if I’d have had it to do over again, I wouldn’t want to spin out. But it’s just one of those deals where I was just trying to get all I could and just got a little too far.”
That’s what makes Burton so good. When was the last time anyone remembers him saying he went a little too far? If anything, his critics say he doesn’t push things far enough. Yet he has his aggressive moments.
At one point during the race, he had contact with Jimmie Johnson and kept the car on the track and off the wall. Late in the race, he cut off Greg Biffle and Biffle cut him some slack. When Stewart and Harvick wrecked, he darted by and banged doors with Harvick but was able to charge through. Finally, when Hamlin’s engine sputtered, he avoided ramming Hamlin and ruining his own chances for victory.
He demonstrated a balance of aggressiveness and patience, leading only the final two laps. And it was perhaps appropriate that he led the 1-2-3 RCR contingent across the finish line, considering the stability he brings to a company that features an aggressive hotshoe in Harvick and a young driver in Bowyer.
“I’m just glad that Jeff’s a part of our team so we can all stay sane,” Harvick said. “It keeps us all straight. He’s been great for me and great for RCR and everybody involved.”
Of Burton’s 20 career wins, four have come since he joined RCR during the 2004 season. He was 18th in points in 2005, and then helped lead the resurgence of the team in 2006 and 2007. Last year, all three RCR drivers made the Chase. Five races into 2008, Harvick sits third in points, Burton fourth and Bowyer ninth.
The drivers and Childress credit the surge to hard work from the engine builders (now Earnhardt-Childress Racing Technologies) and engineers to better organization and maturing drivers.
“We were all behind,” said Bowyer, who finished third in the standings in 2007 behind the powerful Hendrick duo of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. “We set goals. We knew what cars we had to beat to win, to compete for a championship. We worked hard over the winter, all of us as a whole.”
With the foundation in place, the team can put itself in position to win races and run strong at places like Bristol.
“We’re not going to stand in here today and say we had the fastest car all day,” said Burton, who has won at 11 of the 22 tracks currently on the Cup circuit. “We had good pit stops. We had good strategy. We did all the little things well. When you do all the little things well, a lot of times the big things take care of themselves.”
Yet a team can do all the little things well and still feel as if the race slipped through its hands. Just ask Joe Gibbs Racing President J.D. Gibbs. Although he celebrated a win by Kyle Busch a week earlier at Atlanta, he witnessed a Daytona 500 victory elude his drivers earlier this year and watched a similar collapse at Bristol.
Stewart and his team were in a tough position deciding whether to pit for fresh tires while leading, considered a no-win situation with only nine laps remaining. Hamlin, the unfortunate recipient of contact early in the race, nearly rallied for the win, only to be spoiled by a fuel pickup problem that struck the team at times last year.
“You’re kind of judged off your last race,” said Gibbs, whose driver Kyle Busch leads the point standings by 30 over Biffle. “For us to not be able to again capitalize on great cars – you don’t have cars that good every weekend.
“We have some great runs and great cars but unless you capitalize on it, it’s kind of wasted. That’s the frustrating part. The encouragement is we can be fast again next week, but over time you have to be sure you maximize that.”
Burton can relate. He’s been around long enough to know that decisions on tires are easiest for those not leading the race, and he and crew chief Scott Miller didn’t need anyone to tell them to pit under caution with nine laps remaining. Burton’s only question: Could he get from sixth to first before the race ended?
He knew what it was like to finish second at Bristol. Not only had he finished second last year, but also had second-place finishes in August 2005 and August 1998.
“This is a special facility, a real special facility,” Burton said. “It’s hard to explain it. This is a track where you have to be smart, you have to be aggressive, you have to do everything well here.
“You don’t have any fluke winners at Bristol. It’s one of those tracks that just requires so much from the equipment, requires a lot from the team, the driver, everybody. You can’t have a real weak area and be successful here.”
Mentioned Drivers: Jeff Burton
2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings
Driver Standings after the AMP Energy 500
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 6248 |
| 2 | Mark Martin | -184 |
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | -192 |
| 4 | Juan Pablo Montoya | -239 |
| 5 | Tony Stewart | -279 |
| 6 | Kurt Busch | -312 |
| 7 | Greg Biffle | -340 |
| 8 | Ryan Newman | -402 |
| 9 | Kasey Kahne | -414 |
| 10 | Carl Edwards | -437 |
| 11 | Denny Hamlin | -448 |
| 12 | Brian Vickers | -556 |
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