Top 35 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers: No. 17 - Jeff Burton
Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton finished in the top-five in three of the final four races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2009.
// David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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Richard Childress Racing driver Jeff Burton really had four miniseasons within the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season:
The first two races, where he didn’t finish better than 28th. The next 12, where he had six top-10 finishes to move into the top 10 in the point standings and a potential position in the Chase For The Sprint Cup;
The next 18, where he didn’t finish higher than 14th and stumbled to 18th in points;
The final four, where he finished second twice, fifth and ninth.
Yes, Burton and his No. 31 Chevrolet team were wildly inconsistent, but the way he closed the season has to give him hope for an improved 2010.
During the offseason, SceneDaily is taking a look at the top 35 in 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points. Here’s how Jeff Burton’s season unfolded:
By the numbers: Burton went winless for the first time since 2005, while he had five top-five and 10 top-10 finishes, both his lowest numbers since ’05, when he raced his first full-time season with RCR.
Season highlights: With only five top-fives, there weren’t many memorable moments for Burton. Perhaps his best performances came in the season’s third, 35th and 36th races. In the third race, Burton led 61 laps and finished third at Las Vegas. And then he closed the year with back-to-back runnerup finishes, his best back-to-back races since 2000, when he was second in consecutive races at Texas and Martinsville.
Key setbacks: From the first Michigan race on, Burton didn’t finish higher than 14th, and he had 10 finishes outside the top 20.
Newsworthy moment: Crew chief Todd Berrier moved from RCR’s No. 07 team to Burton’s team for the final four races of the year, and that happened to be Burton’s best four-race stretch of the year.
In his words: “I’m just real proud of everyone at Richard Childress Racing. Obviously, it has been a really good four weeks for the CAT Racing team. We’re real proud of everyone’s effort. Everybody has been working really hard and putting a lot of effort out there, and that is all I can ask for. Even early in the year when we weren’t running well, everybody was still working hard. That is why you never heard me get down on that group of people and their efforts there. Todd has done an incredible job putting the team together very quickly. … Two second-places in our first four outings and a fifth and a ninth with Todd is pretty good. We’re not where we need to be, but we’ll keep working. We have a good baseline.”
