Burton ready to defend title at Loudon
Posted: Friday July 10, 1998 12:02 AM
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Despite not starting the year like he did last year, Burton is still confident he can repeat at the Jiffy Lube 300 (AP) |
LOUDON, New Hampshire (AP) -- Mention great expectations, and Charles
Dickens never enters the conversation.
Instead, the first two words out of Jeff Burton's mouth are Jack
Roush, and that's the way it is when you drive for the biggest team on
the NASCAR circuit.
When Burton goes out Sunday to defend his title in the Jiffy
Lube 300, victory won't be as important as its long-range impact.
Moving up in the standings is the target.
The ultimate goal is the Winston Cup championship, and the
demands placed on Burton and teammate Mark Martin by their car
owner make the journey interesting.
"Nobody has higher expectations than Jack Roush," Burton said
of his boss, who owns five cars on the circuit. "Jack wants one of
the cars to win the championship, and the other to be right on his
heels. It's a great position to be in, to have an owner who believes
we should run in the top 10 every week. It's exciting."
At the same time, Burton knows that Martin, along with two-time
series champion Jeff Gordon and contender Dale Jarrett, won't be beaten
without a superb effort.
"This series is so competitive," Burton said. "You have to do
just about everything right to win a race. One mistake, and you're
out of it."
Burton concedes that he has made several mistakes this year, the
kind that dropped him from contention earlier in the season.
Recently, he has risen to eighth in the standings, which is still not
acceptable after a fourth-place finish last year.
"If you look at our record, you don't see anything but top-10s
and 38s," he explained. "That's a hard way to earn points. I had to back off a little, so we could finish races. You have to have consistency, and that's what we're starting to get."
Burton won't attribute his decline -- he is winless this year
after scoring his first three victories in 1997 -- to the change of
crew chiefs from Buddy Parrott to Frank Stoddard. After showing
Burton how to win last year, Parrott has become the overseer of all
the Roush cars.
Burton insists that situation has been helpful. He says Parrott's knack
for dealing with people has created a better network of
information-sharing among the cars -- particularly his and Martin's.
"I know people can look at our record and make the argument
that we're not as good as we were a year ago, but the structure
hasn't changed much," Burton said. "Frank Stoddard has always
been the guy who touched the race car."
As he approaches Sunday's race at New Hampshire International
Speedway -- the 17th of 33 on the schedule -- Burton predicts a
strong second-half showing. He credits Stoddard's leadership for
allowing him to feel that way.
"We've had some problems, and if you react you're going to make
mistakes," Burton said. "If you respond, that's when you're going
to get it right. That's what we've done -- respond."
As Burton attempts to become the first driver to successfully
defend a race title in five years of competition in New England,
Gordon will be trying to make a little history of his own. The only
two-time winner since Winston Cup racing came to Loudon, Gordon
will try to become the first to win consecutively. He took the CMT
300 last September.
"After the way we ran in the first race here last year, winning
in the fall was a big thrill," Gordon said on the eve of
qualifying for what he hopes will be his fifth victory this year
and the 34th of his career.
Last year in the Jiffy Lube 300 -- a race he won in 1995 en route
to the first of his two series titles -- things didn't go well from
the start.
"We qualified 29th in the first race, then we had a flat tire
and were just never able to make up for any of it," he said of his
23rd-place finish. "The whole team was disappointed."
Both Gordon and Rusty Wallace have chosen cars from their
respective garages that have carried them to considerable success
in the past.
"I'm confident that we can qualify up front and run there all
day come Sunday," Wallace said.
The other top contenders figure to be flat-track ace Bobby
Hamilton, and Martin, Jarrett and Wallace's teammate, Jeremy Mayfield.
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