Around the Track: Richmond

Richmond International Raceway's annual fall race has earned its position as the cutoff event to determine the field for the second annual Chase for the Nextel Cup with equal mixes of drama and competition.

Saturday night's 47th annual Chevy Rock & Roll 400 once again promises plenty of storylines to enthrall fans, including who will win and who will contend for the Nextel Cup championship.

In his latest edition of Cingular's "Around the Track," Jeff Burton talks about Nextel Cup's 26th race of the season, what it will take to win on the high-banked, high-speed .750-mile short track and its effect on the Chase.

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Jeff Burton: Richmond is my home race, and as that, it can be both a treasure and, if you let it, an impediment.

I might be an ass, but when I go to a race, I go to race. My family understands that when I'm in Richmond, I'm there to concentrate on racing. I do see my family more than I normally do, but I stick to my schedule, and that's what I have to do.

The racetrack is not a place for me to be social. I can do that away from the racetrack.

I like going to Richmond. I really enjoy the racetrack and I think it's one of the best tracks on the circuit, for sure, so I think it's all positive.

I take a lot of pride in being from Virginia. There are a lot of people that come to that race who watched my brother Ward and I grow up -- not only as race-car drivers, but also as people -- so I think that's pretty cool.

Not only did we contend for the win at Bristol recently, which gives us a boost heading into Richmond, but Team Cingular had a great run at Richmond earlier this season.

We had a part break late in the race [when] a piece of rubber actually came up off the track and locked up the power steering pump. That was a bad break because we had a good car and we had a great race going.

I'm excited about going to Richmond because I tend to run well there and I like that racetrack. I've been saying I think that this team will be better the last third of the season than it was in the first third -- and I still believe that.

I think when we go to Richmond it's a track that we feel really good about. We had built a brand new car that we looked forward to running there, but we kind of destroyed it in a test two weeks ago in Milwaukee.

Around the TrackJeff Burton thinks there will be plenty of drama at Richmond Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

That was disappointing, but we're taking a really good car back to Richmond -- the same car that we ran in the spring. We feel good about it.

Setup wise, Richmond's changed a lot. In the past, rear grip used to be a major problem. That's kind of gone away and the big issue, now, is making the cars turn.

Rear grip is not near the issue that it used to be, and the track has a lot of grip. There's a lot of side grip and you just don't have the loose off problem like we historically had.

So the main thing is getting the thing to turn well so you can get into the throttle very quickly, and run the center of the corner very fast. That's the main issue.

Richmond's the cutoff race for the Chase for the Nextel Cup, and even though we're out of contention for a spot, I'm not going to say I'll be extra cautious or pull over for those who are already in the Chase and those who are fighting for those final spots.

If it came to winning a race at Richmond, I wouldn't care if I won by two laps or made up two laps and won by a car length.

	Inside the Numbers Jeff Burton at Richmond Year Start Finish 2005 12 16 2004 5 23   17 14 2003 7 4   16 9 2002 15 39   23 3 2001 4 9   17 14 2000 1 5   29 7 1999 7 13   10 37 1998 3 1   13 7 1997 11 2   13 42 1996 3 3   21 4 1995 20 13   22 31 1994 25 20 Avg. 13.4 14.4

I've won a race in Cup where I led every lap, and I won a Busch race at Charlotte a few years ago where I think we had all but one car lapped -- not on fuel mileage, just on being that much faster.

And I'll tell you in both of those situations I was equally proud of what we had done.

I think in today's day and time, you have the Lucky Dog that can help you, but if you do win a race by two laps it would be because a lot of people had problems.

So I think probably making up laps and winning it would be more enjoyable.

And the key to being successful in that scenario is how many cars you get a lap down. If you don't have a lot of cars a lap down, and you get a lot of cautions you can always pull up to the leader and you can make a lot of laps up there.

A few, long green flag runs will take you out of that opportunity. When Robby Gordon made all those laps up, at Richmond -- obviously they were very fast, but if you make that many laps up, obviously there aren't a lot of cars a lap down.

You've got to be the first car to get them back and the fewer cars a lap down, the better chance you have of doing that.

If our Cingular Chevrolet can't win the race and I had to pick a favorite well, the Evernham cars [defending race winner Jeremy Mayfield and spring RIR winner Kasey Kahne] have been very strong at Richmond -- there's no getting around that.

I'd have to say they'd be my picks going into that race, just because they've run so well there.

I don't know if Richmond favors someone who has to win to get into the Chase, as Jeremy did last year.

A short track offers the opportunity for a lot of stuff to happen. One guy can win or finish second or third -- much like we did at Bristol. We finished second and then a bunch of guys that are up in the points had trouble.

Richmond is a track at which a lot of things can change at -- and this thing, the Chase, won't be decided until we leave Richmond, for sure.

There are some people, who are going to Richmond thinking that they're safe, and they're not going to get in, or they're going to come very close to not getting in.

There could be a major change in the points after that race.

Jeff Burton (31) says he won't give up track position to any driver, like Elliott Sadler (38), trying to make the Chase. Credit: Autostock

Some people might think that with the race being the cutoff before the Chase, that it will seriously affect how we race.

I will say this: I wouldn't want to be the one that was in a wreck with a guy that kept [someone else] from being in the Chase. But, I'm there to win, too. I'm there to get the best finish I can get and if that means I need to race a guy real hard who is in the Chase, I'm going to do it.

If I were in the Chase hunt, I would expect respect from other people, but I wouldn't expect anyone to pull over for me. I'm not going to pull over for anybody; I'm just not going to.

That's not what I'm made of or what I get paid to do. I get paid to compete at a high level. I don't want to be in a wreck with one of the guys in or trying to get into the Chase -- or cause any harm to them.

But I'm there to win, too.

And with the cutoff for the Chase field again coming down to Richmond with more than 10 guys eligible, well, I think you could always hope for more [excitement] -- but realistically it would be hard to ask for a lot more.

There are a lot of teams that still have a chance, so I think Richmond will be a pressure packed race for a lot of people. Being able to keep up with what's a race within a race within a race will be pretty exciting, and it would be hard to do it any better.