Engines doom Burton, Newman at Michigan

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Engine trouble, which has long been a bane on many hopeful race winners at Michigan International Speedway, ended the hopes of no less than three frontrunners Sunday in the Pepsi 400.

Jeff Burton led 26 of the last 37 laps, but when the engine in his No. 99 CITGO Ford ran virtually dry of water he slipped to fourth at the finish behind winner Dale Jarrett's UPS Ford.

PEPSI 400 • Results • Standings

Earlier, Roush Racing teammate Kurt Busch led 23 laps in his No. 97 Rubbermaid Ford, and Ryan Newman paced 17 circuits in his ALLTEL Ford before engine woes laid them low.

Team owner and engine guru Jack Roush, who has all four of his teams in the top 13 in the point standings said his organization was trying to find more horsepower and was ready to pay the price.

"We'll get back," Roush said. "We're in an aggressive engine development program as well as a championship chase and we're trying to take better stuff to every race. We're developing real hard at the shop and when we think we've got something we're gonna put it in our cars this year."

"There were things in all four of our engines that are better than what we had when we came to Michigan in June," Roush said of his cars, which finished fourth (Burton) fifth (Martin), 11th (Matt Kenseth) and 39th (Busch).

"Like every other team you wind up looking at what is the performance gain potential and what is the risk -- and if the risk is considered to be minimal by the people making the judgments and the performance gain is there and considerable, then you take a chance.

"I don't know what happened to either one because we haven't taken them apart yet. The 99's problems started with a loss of water and we think we had a piston problem with the 97. We thought initially it was valve train but I think a piece of the piston ring probably came up and got caught under a valve."

"We had some sort of leak in the engine all day -- maybe a head gasket or something," Burton said. "Certainly, we're really disappointed, but I'm not disappointed in the effort of the engine department, the chassis guys, the body guys -- everybody on pit road.

"We had a great car from the second half of the race on and we'll just keep digging. These races are 500 miles long or 400 miles long and you've got to be able to run that distance. I'm obviously disappointed, but I'm not down on my engine guys, I'm not down on anybody -- we're working really hard."