Conversation: Jeff Burton

CONCORD, N.C. -- Just two years removed from annual membership on virtually every championship shortlist in Winston Cup racing, Jeff Burton has struggled of late just to run in the top 10.

But don't count him out. All is not grim for the outspoken driver. Burton remains confident that he will one day hoist the Winston Cup high above his head and bathe in a champagne shower, all the while maintaining an unmatched devotion to achieving optimum driver safety.

It won't be a quick fix, but a new team structure has jump-started Team CITGO. Since Brad Parrott joined the program a month ago, Burton has posted his only top-five of the year and a pair of top-10s, and has risen three positions in the title chase.

	Burton won the 2003 Winston Open exhibition race, but finished ninth in The Winston. Credit: Autostock

Last Saturday, an hour before winning The Winston Open at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Burton sat down with NASCAR.com Senior Writer Marty Smith to talk safety, South Carolina summer classics and the secret of South Boston's famous bologna burgers.

I know this might be an odd question, but I'll ask it anyway. Where does your devotion to safety come from? Every driver is in the same danger you are, but you take a far more proactive role in safety development than most? How come?

Burton: Well, I broke my back in a racecar, and when I did it I was driving a car that I had built, that I had put the seat in and put the seatbelts in. I didn't do it intentionally wrong. I thought I'd done everything right. Through that, I broke my back because I hadn't done everything right.

And I figured if that happened to me it could happen to anybody. I was working real hard to make my car safe, just didn't know how. So it was clear to me that in many cases people were doing things wrong, not because they wanted to but, in almost all cases, because they didn't know any better. So to get better and smarter, I knew I had to get more educated on it, so that's why I got so proactive.

In your opinion, what is the single most important area right now that requires development to ensure driver safety?

I think the wall technology is right on the cusp of having it ready. We need to make the final hurdle and get it done. And we need to continue to improve the cockpit area. We need to build cars that are a little bit bigger, that have a little more places to absorb energy, (and) get the driver further towards the center of the car.

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I think those things are the things that are ahead of us in short term that we need to be concentrating on to try to pull it off as quick as we can.

I know you've gone to see Jerry Nadeau and his family. It seems many drivers, while certainly concerned, would stay away from that for fear of seeing the possibilities. How hard is it for a driver to see what could happen?

I consider myself to be an intelligent person, and ignoring something doesn't make it go away. I'm of the mindset that I love what I do, I understand the risk and understand the rewards, you know? So me going to see a driver that's injured doesn't have an adverse effect on me.

We are a community, and we've got to be able and willing to show that we're there for families and for people that need our help - not only racecar drivers but people in general. So when I stopped to see an injured driver or make a call about an injured driver, I'm not doing it as a racecar driver, I'm doing it as a human being. And I think it's what we ought to do.

We need to show each other that we care for each other and be there when somebody needs you. That's where that comes from. It doesn't come from wanted to see somebody hurt or anything. Really, I don't like to see anybody hurt, but I have a sense of community and I think we ought to all try to help each other.

Very well said. Have you seen the car yet, the effects the crash had on it?

I have had the opportunity to participate in some things with that crash in particular. He had a really hard wreck. And his team did an outstanding job of building his racecar, it just was one of those wrecks that we need to look at really hard, because nothing really went wrong.

So we need to look at those wrecks and say, 'Okay, nothing really went wrong, so how do we make it better from there?' Every wreck that we can look at and really get into and understand, the smarter we can be to prevent injury in the future, and NASCAR has been really proactive, not only in this accident, but in almost all accidents, and in this case I participated in a small way.

Brad Parrott gets fired from Robert Yates Racing; you guys pick him up, three days later you post your first top-five. How has he changed this race team?

	Credit: Autostock

Brad and I have a great relationship, won a lot of races together last year and I trust Brad's experience on some things and he knows my language and my lingo. The main thing it did was it allowed us to take advantage of Pierre Kuettel's strength.

(Kuettel) was our car chief and is now our team manager, so now we have a guy back at the shop that understands what it is that we fight every day, that understands what we need to make our cars go faster and also understands the production part of things - how much work's got to get done. So it allowed us to bring somebody in with some strengths and take full advantage of PK's strengths.

Now Paul has more people to talk to. It was just a win-win (situation). Our results are better since Brad's here, but not solely because Brad's here, because we're able to move some things around on our team and Brad's certainly part of that.

Being able to focus more on being prepared, on designing and building better racecars and having the time to go test those, that's where PK has done such a wonderful job.

In the late 90s you appeared destined to win a championship. Are you surprised you haven't gotten one yet, and do you still see one in your future?

I certainly feel like there's one in my future. I didn't forget how to drive these racecars. I have struggled in today's technology. I have struggled in adapting to how we need to run a race team in 2003 versus how we ran it in 1999. We got behind on the curve with knowledge, based on the fact that we were having success and weren't willing to change.

So we're paying those prices. I think I'm a capable racecar driver. I think I have the skill and ability to get it done. If I didn't, I'd quit. Won five races in the Busch Series last year and really ran well in every race we went to, and when I'd come get in my Cup car I just couldn't make it go fast. So the speed's in me.

I've just got to find a way to get the speed out of the Winston Cup car. And I feel confident I can do that. We're starting to see that again. With what we've been able to do here the last month, we have really been, in many cases, as strong as any Roush car at all those races. The best at Martinsville, for the most part of the race at Richmond, the best there.

Certainly the second best at California. So I think we're headed in the right direction. There's no doubt about it. I believe people will be talking about this team as a championship contending team in the future. I do believe that.

Who's got a better shot to get Jack Roush his first career Winston Cup championship this year, Matt Kenseth or Kurt Busch?

You know, Matt is real calm and Robbie does a nice job of keeping things in order. Kurt's a little more "seat-of-the-pants," gets a little emotional. The breaks are really going to make a big difference. The guy that can take advantage of other people's problems, and not have problems, is the guy with the best chance in our camp right now.

Mark and I dug ourselves holes. We both had two engine failures, then both got in a wreck in Talladega. Next thing you know we're 25th and 22nd in the points and we're clawing and scratching to get ourselves back in the top-10. They didn't have those problems. There's days I think Matt and his team will be the champions and there's days I think Kurt and his team will be the champions.

The one I'd like to be the champion first is Mark, in the best world, to get the first Winston Cup championship (for Roush). Mark being the guy would be great by me. I want to get one, too, don't get me wrong. If I had my druthers, Mark would win it in 2003 and I'd win it in 2004.

Will Roy Williams return the University of North Carolina basketball team to prominence?

I don't think there's any doubt about it. This is one of those situations where that team's going to come out and play well, and they would have come out and played well for (Matt) Doherty, too. He had a lot of freshmen, young players, and they had a lot to learn.

They were playing against really good teams, so they didn't look good very many times. Roy Williams is coming in, has stepped into a great situation with some young ball players. As long as the AD doesn't let the ball players run the team, they'll be just fine.

I don't think Roy Williams will put up with that. Of course, Doherty didn't either and they let him get gone. So I think Roy Williams will have a tremendous amount of success at Carolina, and I think Doherty would have had a tremendous amount of success at Carolina in the future.

Got any thoughts on the potential Atlantic Coast Conference expansion?

Well, I'm a traditionalist at heart, so I'm not so much in favor of it. But I don't understand the business aspects of everything. I don't like maybe having to split teams up and not being able to play each other two times a year. I think that's part of the fun of the ACC, is all those rivalries that exist. To lose that would be a great loss, in my opinion.

Rumors are swirling that NASCAR is taking a race date from Darlington and giving it to California, a large market venue. Yet, with finishes like Kurt Busch/Ricky Craven this year and your classic duel with Jeff Gordon in 1997, the racing seems to speak for itself. Is this sport in danger of outgrowing its britches?

I'm not going to say what we're going to do at Darlington, because I don't know. But I think if they take a race from Darlington, they won't take the Southern 500. It would be the 400. The deal is, when is the race going to be? If you have the Southern 500 in March, is it still the Southern 500, even if it's still 500 (miles)? To me, the Southern 500 is really a special thing.

There's been hardly any fluke winners in the Southern 500. It's a race full of rich tradition. Part of the racing in South Carolina in the summer, when it's hot, is on the drivers it's difficult. I mean that's what racing is all about. I wouldn't be real happy about (moving the date), but again, whatever is in the best interest of the sport is what we need to do.

Most guys would rather not discuss their charity work, but earlier this week you raised more than $100,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Now I've put you on the spot, so tell us about it.

My wife and I are heavily involved in Duke Children's Hospital in Durham, N.C. CITGO is a huge contributor to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. We both had those relationships before we became partners in our race program.

It just so happens Duke is a research center for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, so CITGO has done some really great things, along with my wife and Roush Racing to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy, which in turn raises money for the Duke Children's Hospital. We had an MDA event that was, for the first year, was a great success.

We look to grow it every year. That was the first annual, so next year will be the second annual. We look to grow it every year and make it bigger and better, and we have some pretty lofty goals. And I think in the future we can meet those goals.

I heard a story once that you and Ward went to blows during a race at South Boston. I need to hear this story first-hand. First, why? And second, who won?

The more it gets told, as all stories do, the bigger the story becomes (laughing). The truth of the story is, no punches were thrown. There was a disagreement on the track, and everybody that was there knows that I was right (laughing), so Ward came over to see me and we had a conversation about it.

And through that, he did grab me by the collar and I may have grabbed him, I don't remember what happened, but since then it's turned into we were beating each other up and all that stuff. But the fact of the matter is, we had a brotherly confrontation that was over in a few weeks.

That event, actually in the long run, was good for us, because it taught us that we could be competitive without being stupid to each other. We embarrassed ourselves that night, and we won't let that happen again.

Speaking of SoBo, Sadler loves those bologna burgers, said he's eaten like 20 of them at one sitting. What's your record?

Have you ever seen Sadler? (Laughing) If you have, you would understand how he could eat 20 at one sitting. I'm not a huge bologna burger fan, which I know isn't proper to say and certainly isn't politically correct in the South Boston area.

But if you like bologna burgers -- I don't know what it is, I guess they just leave the grease in there from every year and it just congeals and then it melts and just adds a special flavor. And they are unique.

So if you're ever in the South Boston area, Saturday night, go to South Boston Speedway and get a bologna burger so you'll know what you're talking about, because nothing tastes like it.