Burton on top of his game, says age no indicator of talent
By SceneDaily Staff
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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CONCORD, N.C. – Jeff Burton thinks he is hitting his stride in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. In his 15th season of full-time Cup competition, Burton says he’s a more well-rounded racer – and that he has absolutely no thoughts of leaving the sport.
The Richard Childress Racing driver has been on top of his game over the last year. He enters Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway second in the Cup point standings and with no intention of slowing down. Burton, who turns 41 June 29, was asked Thursday if he had started thinking about retiring.
Clearly, he is not considering that option at this point.
“What I’ve tried to do is financially plan to be out of the car, but mostly I’m nowhere near wanting to be out of the car,” he said. “I believe drivers should make the decision on when they’re going to be out of the car really quickly. I think that thinking about it for a long time is probably not the right thing to do. I believe that you’ll know, I’ll know, when it’s time. Emotionally, I’m nowhere near not wanting to do this.”
Burton says that there’s no way to determine when a driver is in his prime until that driver ends his career. He dismissed the concept that an older driver loses his edge, that he drops a competitive advantage based on his age.
Instead, Burton says that desire and commitment determine the length of a driver’s career and, in many ways, play a role in his level of success. Personally, Burton thinks he’s the best he’s ever been.
“I honestly believe this. I think I’m a better driver today than I’ve ever been,” he said. “I think I get it more. I’ve never been an overly aggressive driver, so I haven’t backed off of that any. I think I’m actually more aggressive today than I was 10 years ago, believe it or
not.
“… I think I’m smarter, I think I’m a better driver, when the race is over I know how to handle it better, I know how to handle it better when the race is starting and I think I’m a much more complete package than I was when I was 32 years old.”
Burton says that there simply comes a time in a driver’s life when he doesn’t want to do this anymore – and that’s when it’s time to walk away. When you start thinking about doing other things, the driving part suffers. But it’s about much more than age, he argues, as he points to Dale Earnhardt finishing second in the standings at the age of 49.
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It’s about desire.
“You can do it into your late 40s if you want to,” he said. “But if you don’t have the same want that an 18-year-old has, he’ll whip [you]
because if he wants it more than you do, he’s going to get more than you do. … It’s hard to sustain that from 7 years old to 50 years old. That’s what you have to sustain.
“It’s not the 15 years that you’re in Cup, it’s the 40 years [you race in all series], you have to sustain that for that amount of time. If you can do that, then you can be successful.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Jeff Burton
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