Edition 40, February 20th - 2009

Jeff Burton Shares His Racing Knowledge
(And Other notes from Daytona 2009)

Okay so I picked the wrong driver to win the Daytona 500 at the beach this year. In fact one hour before the race, I placed a small wager with my friend Kirk, who by the way chose his favorite Kenseth as usual. One of the others in our group chose Earnhardt. I assumed that the team cars would work independently for the first three quarters of the race, and then find one another to move towards the front. With five laps to go they would line up end-to-end, and race the final lap against one another and crown a winner.

My script for the race outcome was based on many years of spectator experience plus what I was gleaning from race reports leading up to the 500. With no practice I was certain that a very established driver and team would certainly win. My head said to bet on Gordon or Kyle Bush, but my heart would not let me pull for the younger Bush so I settled with Gordon. My heart wanted either Martin or Kenseth to win. My real dark horse was either the new Tommy Baldwin team or Kvapil as I knew they both needed to perform well to either get or keep their sponsors.

Well by now we all know that the rain shortened winner was Kenseth who commented at the beginning of the race he was going to hang out in the back, wait to see how the car was handling and then if okay push to the front. Well after Stewart decided that he was going to charge to the front with or without help, Gordon had his tire issue, Little E had two pit road incidences, Johnson could not keep his car in the front of the field, and Kyle wrecked, my plans for a team finish diminished and of course local town boy Matt was a very emotional winner. We were able to witness a 500 win that may never happen again in his career. Although a little wet, we went to a local watering hole to toast the winner.

But one of the highlights of our week in Daytona Beach was an invitation to go to a lunch meeting with a small group to meet Jeff Burton. I was hoping to glean a few ideas from this meeting for this article, but I never expected such an open and outpouring of ideas and ideals from a driver. Jeff thanked his new sponsors then moved on to questions from the audience. Not being shy I asked about his opinions of Sprint drivers who also race in the Nationwide series. Jeff immediately replied that he thought this was not a problem as this is how he came up through the series. He started with his father and $200,000 and competed against the elite series drivers with $2 million budgets. Some in this series are now spending $ 6 million annually. Jeff added that to aspire to the Sprint series you almost certainly need to put in your time in the junior series no matter what your talent level, as that is where the Sprint owners look for their new talent.

Happy with this answer I pressed on and asked Jeff if he thought that drivers had lost contact with their fans. (I knew he had stated the affirmative a few weeks before). “We are doing a lot of work meeting people, and giving autographs, we just are just not being very efficient in the numbers of people we personally meet. We must get better at that.” As long as we had his attention we asked about the condition of Daytona Speedway and whether or not it needed repaving. “This track is one of the most abrasive we drive on” Jeff said. It certainly is time for needed repairs and hopefully they will not make it worse by trying to correct something that does not need to be fixed. He pointed out that Homestead and Las Vegas are better tracks after their reconditioning, mainly because owners asked for ideas from the drivers instead of making assumptions that they knew what to repair or change.

I found Jeff to be very straightforward, not afraid to speak honestly, and very open about his career and personal life. He is a very good spokesman for the sport. Perhaps I have a new team to cheer for from now on.

As we wait out this too long winter for the short track season to open in the Midwest, it was nice to listen to a race engines again. I even went up close and personal to the exhaust pipes of a show car revving up just to get the feeling again. The shorts and short sleeves go back in the closet for now, but April is not that far away.

RACING TO THE CHECKERS

Jim