Burton in position to make his title run

Burton in position to make his title run


Could this be the year Jeff Burton has been working toward since he first climbed into a Cup car for Filbert Martocci 18 years ago? Considering the way things went for Burton in September, you could make the argument for yes.
In order for it to be this year, Burton likely will need a very good finish in Sunday's Price Chopper 400 at a track where he has not been very good in the past—Kansas Speedway.
Can do, he said this week.
"I like the Kansas racetrack," said Burton , whose best Cup points finish was third in 2000, the year before Kansas opened for business. "It's a fun place to go and I look forward to going there. I feel like this weekend will be our best chance to run well there."
Burton will take to the 1.5-mile oval in Kansas City , Kan. , on Sunday, just 80 points behind leader Denny Hamlin entering the third of 10 Chase races.
That deficit isn't bad. There are, however, seven potentially bad things standing between him and first place.
Six of those are the drivers in front of him in the standings as Burton heads to Kansas . A stumble on Sunday, Burton knows, could be disastrous.
"You can be out of the Chase in three races," he said. "You can either be out of it or you can position yourself to win it. Where we'll be, who knows?"
The seventh thing standing in Burton 's way is history.
None of Burton 's 21 career victories have come at Kansas . His best finish in nine tries there is fifth—that came in 2006.
Five times Burton has finished 15th or worse at Kansas and his average finish there is 18.6. Last year, as a non-Chase driver, he ended the day 22 spots behind winner Tony Stewart.
Still, Burton said, he does not feel like Kansas has his number.
"To be honest," he said, "I don't even know what my stats are there. I don't view Kansas as a place where we don't run well. I view it as a place where we don't have (high) finishes. My focus when we go there is to be as prepared as we can be.
"Although it's not new, it's one of our newer tracks. Sometimes people adapt to things quicker than others. It may be a track that I just haven't gotten the handle of, but I feel like this will be our best chance to run well there."
With New Hampshire winner Clint Bowyer succumbing to a killer 150-point penalty, and with Kevin Harvick swooning last week at Dover , Richard Childress Racing's hopes for a championship suddenly appear to rest in Burton 's hands.
He had two top-four finishes in September and led 11 laps in another race. Burton comes to Kansas off a second-place finish in Dover and he comes armed with that cool, analytical Burton mind.
"Ten races is a long time," he said. "If you're not learning and applying from the first race to the fifth race to the 10th race, you're doing something wrong. Every race is an opportunity for us to learn as a team and as a driver. Hopefully, we're there learning something that we can apply to winning a championship.
"You can't get caught up in the chess game of where I am now. It's an accumulation of all those points. That's not to say if you're 12th, 300 points back, you can say that you're going to win a championship. It's not going to happen. You have to be in position."
And Burton , a veteran of 575 Cup starts, is definitely in position.
By Jim Pedley

Special to Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(September 30, 2010)