| | | | | |  | | CIA Stock Photo | Burton led the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings for four consecutive weeks before dropping to second behind Kyle Busch. | | | | EVEN BETTER | The best is 'yet to come' for Burton's No. 31 RCR team | |
| | SceneDaily Staff Richard Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton says his team is better this year than it was this time last season, even if he’s not leading laps every week.
Burton led the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings for four consecutive weeks before dropping to second behind Kyle Busch following Saturday night’s race at Richmond. He has been no worse than sixth after eight of the season’s 10 races and has never fallen outside the top 12.
Still, he has led only 61 laps this season.
As he plans for another championship-contending season, Burton recognizes that is an issue. It’s not something he tries to sugarcoat or gloss over – instead it’s something he says his team is working to improve.
“We worry about that,” he said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “We have never stood up in front of our fans or the media or ourselves, more importantly, and said that we’re going as fast as we needed to go. We’ve been very open about the fact that we need to find some speed. We’re doing a good job. It’s not like we’re not fast enough to put ourselves in position with races, but there are other teams that have been able to lead more laps, the 99 team [of Carl Edwards], the Gibbs’ cars [of Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart], those teams have been able to lead more laps and put themselves in the position to win more often.
“We’re not in denial about that, and I won’t sit here today and tell you that’s not an issue for us. It is the issue for us. It is the issue that we feel like we need to be better in. We’re doing a lot of things really well, but there’s areas, I talk every week about we need to improve, and that’s the area we need right now to most improve.”
Still, his team has found itself in the top 10 six times this season and has a worst finish of 13th. Obviously, there’s a lot of credit that goes with that type of success, though it’s questionable whether the team is getting the respect that deserves.
Burton views it as getting a lot out of average days. He also says that he thinks the team has taken positive steps this season. As he looks over the past few seasons, he thinks they gained significant ground in 2006 (the year Burton finished seventh in the standings), then stayed level in 2007 (when they he finished seventh once more). This year, he thinks more improvement is evident.
And it has nothing to do with luck, which he believes is how some people have viewed some of his runs. Instead, he thinks his team is managing races better.
“You’re not always going to be your best, and when you’re not your best, what do you make out of it,” he said. “We haven’t been our best yet. I believe our best is yet to come.”
| | Posted May 09, 2008 , 9:09 pm EST
Last Updated May 11, 2008 , 6:14 pm EST | | | | | | | | | | |
