Around the Track: Phoenix

In his last eight starts in the desert, Jeff Burton has five top-five finishes, no result worse than 12th and consecutive victories in 2000 and 2001.

This week, he addresses the uniqueness of the one-mile oval.

Phoenix is one of the best racetracks that we go to.

You run downhill into Turn 1, under heavy braking to get the car right down on the bottom. As soon as you get down in the corner, you need to be accelerating.

You keep the car on the bottom coming off Turn 2 because the wall coming off Turn 2 comes up on you very, very quickly. You have to be on your toes, there.

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The turn in the middle of the back straightaway really has no effect on the car.

Turn 3 is a turn in which you can stay out to the outside real late, and then get to the bottom of the racetrack about the middle of the corner.

You get back into the throttle very quickly to get on to Turn 4, and you don't want rear wheelspin. You want to turn real well coming off Turn 4 and back onto the front straightaway.

Even though it's labeled something of a short track, Phoenix is faster than Loudon and it's much more like Richmond, than it is like Loudon. It's not as fast as Richmond because it doesn't have as much banking.

Turns 3 and 4 are much more like Loudon than 1 and 2, because Turns 1 and 2 are much tighter than 3 and 4.

With the configuration of the racetrack in Phoenix and the heat we face there, I think 300 miles is the perfect length for this style of racetrack. I think some races are too long on our series.

I think for this style of racetrack, 300 miles is perfect and I wish more tracks were more that type of distance.

As we get ready for this weekend's race, I think that the short track-type racing has been the strength for Team Cingular this season, for sure.

We ran third at Phoenix in the spring and had a very fast car at the end of the race. This is a race we feel very strongly about based on the fact that we did run well there in the spring.

A lot has changed since then. I think we're a better team. We feel good about Phoenix. It's a track where I've had a lot of success in the past, we tested there in the spring and it's a place where we definitely feel like we can have success.

I'm sorry that I wasn't more excited about our finish last spring, but when a team is 15th in points and hasn't won a race, a lot of people expect that team to be really excited when they run third.

We certainly shouldn't take it for granted and think that it's not a good thing, because it's a very good thing for any team -- but if we start getting really excited that third is good enough, we have a problem.

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Team Cingular hasn't gotten into that, we have been realistic about our goals. We've been realistic about where we are and we've been realistic about how much better we need to be in some areas.

I don't want to be part of a team that gets all pumped up and fired up because we ran third. We need to position ourselves so that we can be pumped up and fired up when we win -- and when we run third we can look at it and say 'That was a great race, but what could we have done better?'

That's the attitude and environment that we're going to build as we try to get back into Victory Lane.

If you were to ask me if I was shocked that my last victory came at Phoenix in 2001 my answer would be 'yes and no.'

First of all, I have the utmost respect for how hard it is to win races in the NASCAR Cup Series.

If you would've said to me, 'It's going to be four years before you win again,' I would have thought, 'no way.'

If you were to say to me, 'It could be four years,' I would say, 'Yes, I understand that.'

I know I kind of contradict myself a little bit in saying that, but as a competitor you want to believe that there is no way I won't win in that amount of time.

As a guy that understands how hard the sport is, I understand how that can happen (so) it's a very frustrating thing -- although I will say, no matter what happens to you individually, life will go on for everybody else.

Just when you think the entire world is going to end because you think the world revolves around you, you find out really quickly it doesn't.

I think I've done a nice job of staying focused. I don't know how many races it's been since I've won -- I just don't know.

Other people do, but they look at books and stats to find out. I don't pay attention to that. I pay attention to what did we do last week and what are we going to do better this week.

That's how I live my life.

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