Around the Track: California

This week, Jeff Burton talks about Sunday night's Sony HD 500 on California's high-banked two-mile layout.

California is a fairly slick racetrack. It's not a track with a tremendous amount of grip.

So what will end up happening is you'll slide around a little bit during the day, then when it gets darker and the track cools down, there will be more grip. That can make your car a little bit tighter or it can make it drive a little better, depending on your situation.

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If you're good during the day, it might hurt it and get too tight at night. But, if you set your car up to not be so good during the day, it might transfer up and be really good at night.

When it comes to qualifying, or even making race laps at California, I don't really have any visual marks that I use. For me, it's all in the seat of the pants and what I'm feeling from the racecar.

California is one of those racetracks at which you have to really be on the edge to qualify well. You can't be too tight, but you can't be too loose, either. You have got to be in the throttle a tremendous amount of time.

Corner speed is so important, not only there but also everywhere else, because that builds straightaway speed. And the only way to build good corner speed is to go hard, mash the gas and to be in it for a real long time.

It's an event. You don't just ride around there and qualify well -- you've got to be pretty aggressive.

To be right on the edge at 190-plus miles per hour -- well, it's only for a lap, so it's not so bad. You know, drivers don't get in racecars worrying about getting hurt.

If we did that, we wouldn't do it. The thing that puts you on edge if you wreck is that your chances of competing at a high level in the race become pretty low -- you have a tough time.

It's a risk versus reward thing. Some guys are willing to risk a tremendous amount to qualify well and some guys aren't. I've always been one of those guys who err on the side of caution when it comes to qualifying.

That may not always be in my best interest, but that's what I've always done. Some other guys' level of caution might be lower than mine and that allows them to qualify a little better, but I get out there on the edge in the race a lot more than I do in qualifying.

We tested at California in the beginning of the year, but we've had so many changes to our cars and stuff that that test will have very little relevance on what we do at this race.

Overall, the development of our cars is, and has been an ongoing process.

Our program for tracks like California is the thing that we need the most work on and it's the thing in which we've put the most amount of effort. We've been working on the bodies, some suspension components and on the setups.

I don't know exactly where we're at, but I'm looking forward to getting out there and evaluating our progress. We feel like we've made some improvements, but I know everybody else has, too so we'll have to get out there and see.

I feel good and pretty confident about it. I think we'll be better at California than we were in the spring, but time will tell. The information exchanging process with the other RCR teams has been working well. In the spring we were on such different programs as far as aero and chassis setup -- we really weren't that close.

But, this time all three teams -- mine, Dave Blaney's and Kevin Harvick's -- will go to California on much closer docks than we were in the spring. I think those things do help and I think they are really helping.

California is part of the "New NASCAR," but where we are right now, we just need to win and where we win has little impact.

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We need to get ourselves where we're knocking on the door more often and getting ourselves in the top-10 more often so that we can win races. Where we win is of little impact.

Now, if you said to me, "If you could win five races, which five would they be?" California may or may not be in there. For me, personally, it probably wouldn't be.

I would say Daytona, Indy and Darlington -- places that are richer in history. But, it doesn't matter. A win at California pays the same amount of points as any other racetrack.

It's a beautiful facility and a great market for our sponsors and for our fans. But for me personally, I just want to win and I'm not going to be picky about where that win comes.

If anyone's wondering about teamwork, or team order coming into play in the final races coming down to the cutoff for the Chase, or in the Chase, they shouldn't.

I don't think that you see team orders in Cup racing very often. There's a lot made about team orders in other series, but if you look at how those programs are run, there's one sponsor for two cars.

There is a two-team effort with one sponsor, which is run much closer than we do in NASCAR. If Richard Childress got on the radio and said "Jeff, let Kevin Harvick win," he would demoralize this (Cingular) team.

This team would say, "I drive for a guy who won't let us compete." (If that happened) we wouldn't have success in hiring people and keeping people and keeping sponsors.

Although we operate together, we operate much more independently than they do in Formula One. The opportunity for team orders is much less likely here than it is in other series, because we know the deal.

In Evernham's case, he has a little different deal. He has one sponsor for two cars, but it's different (because) he doesn't have that pressure from the sponsors.

Over here, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to compete from all of our sponsors, so it wouldn't be fair to Cingular Wireless, GM Goodwrench or Jack Daniel's to take away from one of those teams to help the other.

As far as giving guys a break, hoping that when it comes back around they'll cut you some slack, well, I race that way all the time anyway. The Chase has had little impact on that, as far as I'm concerned.

That's been my philosophy since the day I started driving. I've always figured that if I drive aggressively, but clean, that people would respect me -- and that I would get that respect back.

I've driven that way since I was seven years old, and I'm not going to change that. I think it's served me well and I'm going to continue to do that because I think it's the right thing to do, and you get way more returns than you ever give up.

Jeff Burton, driver of the No. 31 Cingular Chevrolet, will take fans Around the Track each race week during the 2005 Nextel Cup season.