With Parrott aboard, J. Burton snaps ugly skid

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Burton has not had much chance to flash his pearly whites this season.

	Burton is looking for his first win since Phoenix in 2001. Credit: Autostock

While Roush Racing teammates Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth have each won a race and Greg Biffle has had a solid rookie season, Burton has left race tracks scratching his head a few times.

But after Sunday's Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Burton's grin began to creep through his clenched face. A last-lap -- heck, it was in the last turn -- pass got Burton two positions, and he posted his best finish of the 2003 season with a fourth-place effort.

"We needed something good to happen to us," Burton said. "We've had a lot of bad breaks. Today was the first day we had some good breaks. It's hard to keep your head up sometimes. But I do believe in this team and in the direction we're headed."

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And that was before the last lap. Burton was running merrily along in seventh, having survived a tough day at Martinsville with a few dings in his car.

Then Burton gave Jimmie Johnson a little shove and got sixth. And then Elliott Sadler and Tony Stewart got into it in front of him.

A couple pushes and shoves later, and Burton saw an opening on the outside. It looked a lot like an old-fashioned slingshot pass on a superspeedway.

Whoosh. From sixth to fourth in a heartbeat.

"I got into Jimmie pretty hard (in turn 4)," Burton said. "I didn't mean to. He came down a little bit, but I went up more than he came down. I ended up getting by him.

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"On the back straightaway, Elliott and Tony got together somehow, and I got on the outside and made it three-wide and got by them. I probably had a seventh-place car, and we finished fourth."

A fourth is a lot better than seventh, obviously. And it's a heck of a lot better than 35th, which is where he finished at Talladega. Or 20th at Texas. Or 13th at Bristol. Or 42nd at Darlington. Or 33rd at Atlanta.

No, it's been a tough five-week stretch for Burton and his young team, and it came in the heels of a decent start. He sat fourth in points after Las Vegas, where he finished sixth.

So a fourth-place finish is darn close to a victory.

"We had some things go our way today," Burton said. "That's the first time all year we've had anything go our way."

VIDEO CLIPS Victory Lane Play video B. Labonte ends up second Play video Earnhardt Jr. leads the most laps Play video J. Burton scores his first top-five of 2003 Play video Wallace, Earnhardt Jr, and Gordon battle for the lead Play video Gordon gets off to quick start Play video

Burton is a big college basketball fan, and has likened his Winston Cup team to a basketball team with a lot of freshmen and sophomores. Sure, they might be talented, but there are a lot of growing pains.

"Our team is really young," Burton said. "I feel real good about where we're headed as a team. We have some improving to do, there's no doubt about it. But I really think we're headed in the right direction. We can build on this."

Asked where the team needed to improve most, and Burton simply pointed to the experience factor.

"(Crew chief) Paul (Andrews) and I haven't worked together in a long time," Burton said. "We have a lot of young people on the team, and we're building. We're building something we hadn't worked with before."

This weekend, Brad Parrott was added to the team as car chief. Parrott, who was fired earlier in the week as crew chief for Dale Jarrett, won five races with Burton in the Busch Series last year.

Perhaps the puzzle is finally taking shape. But Burton preaches patience.

"It's more a matter of needing more time," Burton said. "We're behind a little bit on our cars. We hadn't been able to test like we wanted to. Those haven't helped us very much. But all in all, we're headed in the right direction."