Third-place Martinsville run lifts Burton to first overall

Jeff Burton's third-place finish in Martinsville this weekend vaulted the 40-year-old veteran driver into the overall points lead. John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR

Jeff Burton moved unobtrusively into the Sprint Cup point lead at Martinsville with a well-crafted drive to third. It was a vintage drive -- smooth, fast enough and smart -- for Burton, who at 40 shows no signs of talent deterioration.

Burton revived his withering reputation in 2006 with a run to seventh in the Chase. Last season, he showed it wasn't a fluke by taking seventh again. With a victory already this season at Bristol, along with three top fives and four top 10s in six races, Burton is off to his strongest start out of the past three years.

Texas is next. Burton won the spring race there last year and placed sixth in the fall. He could stay in the lead for a while. It wouldn't be a surprise if he does. But Burton doesn't sound so sure.

A consummate pro, he insists there's more work to be done on the Richard Childress Racing Chevrolets.

"You know, to be honest, I don't think we're running as well right now as we did at this point last year," he said. "Lat year, we were really fast, led more laps, then we kind of fell off. We got where we weren't as competitive toward the end of the year.

"My assessment is we've run anywhere from third to 10th. We haven't really been the best car anywhere, but we've been in the top 10 everywhere. We know that everybody's going to step it up. If we continue to run the way we're running come July, that will be running 20th."

Complacency clearly has not set in for Burton.

"We're got to be better," he said. "I don't know how we're going to do that, but we're going to continue to work ... we have a lot of room to grow. We haven't had -- knock on wood -- a catastrophic day that a lot of people have had. Certainly, that has a lot to do with where we are in the points. But we have to find a little more speed.

"But this is the best we've run here, so I'm glad about that."

RCR's Kevin Harvick is second in the points and Clint Bowyer is 12th. It's early but this is a very solid team that could get better.

Reutimann's switch to No. 44 proves costly

David Reutimann deserves to be in the top 35 in points, but he'll be among the go-or-go-homers in qualifying at Texas. He's a victim of NASCAR's quirky qualifying procedures.

Reutimann started the year outside the guaranteed starting positions and made five straight races to secure 27th spot in the No. 00 owner points. They were lost when he switched to the No. 44 to replace the retiring Dale Jarrett, who was 34th overall -- 15 points in front of 36th-place Jamie McMurray. Both cars are from Michael Waltrip Racing.

Reutimann appealed to NASCAR to take his No. 00 points with him, but was denied on the basis that midseason switches are not allowed unless the team changes owners.

With 132 laps to go last Sunday at Martinsville, Reutimann was in good shape to stay in the top 35. He stayed out under caution and took the lead to gain track position. Reutimann wasn't going to stay here, but seemed headed for a top-25 finish.

Reutimann's Toyota had two rear-end gear failures and he finished 39th, which dropped him to 37th in the owner points. He's 20 points behind DEI's No. 01 driven by Regan Smith. Reutimann is 28th in the driver points. At least he got to keep those.

Skinner delivers for the No. 84

How much does experience count in qualifying from outside the top 35 in points in Cup? For the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota, it's meant everything.

Veteran Mike Skinner has done a yeoman's job replacing A.J. Allmendinger, qualifying into the last three races on time. Allmendinger, in his second Cup season and still in the midst of a difficult transition from his open-wheel roots, missed the opening three races of the season.

Skinner has 249 starts in Cup in a career that began in 1986, but he didn't become a regular until 1997. He spent eight seasons in Cup before returning full-time to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, where he was champion in 1995, as a factory-backed driver for Toyota with Bill Davis Racing in 2004. The 50-year-old is still with Davis.

Allmendinger was thrust into an impossible position, a driver with no stock car experience with a new team and a new-to-Cup manufacturer last season and qualified into only 17 races. With teammate Brian Vickers making every race (the No. 83 is 18th in the driver and owner points), Allmendinger was easy to identify as the problem.

Skinner has done what the team needed, starting 34th, 43rd and 30th. He's finished 27th, 40th and 31st. With a three-race deficit, it hasn't helped much in the owner points -- the No. 84 is 41st and 150 behind Smith in the No. 01 -- but it has given the team information and the sponsor a presence in the races.

The team's plan was for Skinner to attempt to qualify in four races, a period which ends this weekend at Texas. With Skinner's success so far, the pragmatic decision would be to keep him in the car for as long as possible. He doesn't have any conflicts with the Truck schedule until the weekend starting April 25.

Allmendinger, 26, needs more track time, but he isn't going to get it going home before the races. Red Bull says it's committed to him; owner Dietrich Mateschitz should fund a season in the Nationwide Series to prove it.