10 Questions: Jeff Burton

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jeff Burton may be a veteran driver, but the excitement he feels heading into the 2006 season is equal to that of rookie Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer.

Burton has a lot to prove this year, especially since he has not made the cut for the previous two Chases for the Nextel Cup.

Jeff Burton

Burton, who scored a victory at Daytona International Speedway in the 2000 Pepsi 400, took a break during Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona to answer 10 questions not necessarily connected to his racing career.

1. Up to the age of 15, who or what do you feel made the greatest impact on your life?

Burton: Certainly my father, my brothers and my mother. I was the youngest of three brothers, and I got to watch them grow up.

My middle brother, Brian, spent a tremendous amount of time with me when I was young, and obviously my mother and father did. But certainly everybody in my family created the biggest impact.

2. What have you learned about yourself in the last year?

Burton: I learned that I'm pretty damned tough, and that I'm resilient. Through what I would consider to be a bad year, I never really got down.

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I kept focused on what we needed to do, and I take a lot of pride in that. When things are going well, you think there's a lot of pressure and it's tough. But when things are going badly, it's a lot worse.

How you handle that means a lot, and last year I think I handled that exceptionally well.

Q: That's special to you, but is that also a credit to the organization you have at RCR?

Burton: Well, I think that understanding that the company was willing to change in an effort to make things better was important, but also in understanding that it wasn't going to happen overnight.

Certainly, if I were in a situation where I didn't think it was ever going to improve, then the quality of my mindset certainly wouldn't have been very good.

3. If you could go back in time, what period in history would you like to live in?

Burton: I'd live right now. People talk about the 'good old days' and I'm just going to tell you -- we live in the good old days.

I mean, there are certainly points in our history that I find are extremely interesting, and I've read a lot over the last year about the time in our country around World War II -- but I'm just going to tell you, we live in the best time ever, in the world, in my opinion.

So I wouldn't go to a different time.

4. You've always talked about how important your brothers Ward and Brian were, as you were growing up, but now you're a father yourself; so what's your most vivid memory of your children?

Burton: Gosh, that's tough because really, in all honesty there's not one thing. It's just, that when you see your kids happy and you see them doing something that they enjoy -- and it's just pure enjoyment -- that's something that you just can't replace.

There is a portion of a kid's life when they get up in the morning and they say 'what do I get to do today,' whereas we get up in the morning and we say, 'what do I have to do today' -- and that's a big difference.

When your kids are young enough, when it's before school and before all that, they don't understand it until later in life -- but just seeing them happy and getting to enjoy things -- those things to me stand out more than one particular item or vacation or anything like that.

5. Who was your prom date, and what do you remember about that night?

Burton: My prom date was my wife, Kim. We started dating when I was 15 and she was 14 -- so we broke each other in for a long time, and I guess I'm still breaking her in.

But the thing I remember most was that I didn't really want to go. I don't want Kim to take that the wrong way, but she knew I didn't want to go to some damned dance and all that -- I just wanted to go to the party.

So we went, and had our pictures taken, and we left. So I remember really not wanting to be there, and just wanting to go to the party.

Q: You must have gotten a pretty good head start on that part of the evening then, I bet?

Burton: Oh yeah, I had a good head start.

6. What's No. 1 on your life's 'to do list'?

Burton: Well, I have a lot of to do lists. I have lists that are, like, just self-gratifying things like, when I retire -- and I mean when I truly retire, later in life -- I want to take two years when Kim and I will just take a boat and travel around.

We just want to go all over -- the Caribbean, Alaska, Canada -- just make a loop. We won't make it a world thing -- just around North America. That's something I really want to do, but that's a self-gratifying thing.

The thing that really is on top of my list and that I try to check myself on every day, is that am I being the kind of parent that I think I need to be, and am I being the kind of husband that I think I need to be?

I really think that's probably more important than the other to do lists that I have. Once I get to the point that my kids don't want me helping them any more, which is probably already now, but right now they don't get a vote.

One day they will get a vote, but until they do, right now that is going to have to be priority No. 1.

7. Which athlete outside of racing do you most admire?

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Burton: That's a tough question, because there are a lot of athletes that I admire for a lot of different reasons.

Michael Jordan would certainly be one that you look at and he raised the level of not only himself, but also the people around him. Now, he did it in a contentious way many times, and he didn't have a whole lot of people talking really fondly of Michael, that played with him.

But he did raise their level of play and he did demand the most out of them and they respected him for that, even though they perhaps didn't like him so much, but they respected him a great deal.

And he was willing to sacrifice them liking him, to reach the goal. And a lot of that I have respect for.

Bill Romanowski was a guy who would do anything to become a better athlete, although he took it too far and did some things that he shouldn't have done; but there was a guy who was just insane about being a better football player and he'd do whatever it took.

So those are the kind of guys that I really respect, because they'd do whatever it took to succeed in the sport they were in.

8. What's the most embarrassing moment you'll own up to, either in or out of racing?

Burton: Oh God. When I was a child, and this one still sticks out pretty well in my memory. When I was young -- I mean, really young -- my aunt was getting married.

She was throwing the bouquet, you know, and whoever catches it is the next one to get married, is the tradition, or whatever. Well hell -- I didn't know it was just for girls, and I went in there and caught it (laughing).

It took me about three seconds to realize, 'Something's not right, here (laughing).' But of course, I was really little, because my aunts are pretty old, now.

But I was pretty young when she got married (laughing) and that really sticks out as the worst one.

9. If possible, who would you trade places with, and why?

Burton: You know, I don't want to sound pretentious, or cocky, or whatever -- but I kind of like who I am.

Around the TrackJeff Burton on what it takes to compete for the checkers at Daytona Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

I really like the people around me, and when I look at people, I don't look at them and think, 'Boy, they've got it better than me.'

Most people, if I looked at them and I did that analysis, I would come to the conclusion that I've got it pretty damned good, and I don't know.

I'm happy with who I am, I like who I am, I'm comfortable with who I am and the people around me I love very much and I don't think I want to trade with anybody.

10. What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment in NASCAR, to this point?

Burton: Until the last couple years, I would say just being a contender for the championship, year in and year out, was something that I took an awful lot of pride in.

Unfortunately, we haven't done that a lot, recently. But two races really stand out.

Bobby Labonte and I had one hell of a race to win the Coca-Cola 600 (in 1999). I ended up winning at Charlotte and I thought it was one of the coolest things, ever, because I had so much respect for how good Bobby is.

But we had one helluva race and TV did an awful job of covering that race -- because they went to a break and there were three lead changes within 10 laps. It was just an incredible race and I take a lot of pride in winning that one.

And then Jeff Gordon and I at Richmond (in 1998), when we ran side by side for probably 10 of the last 20 laps, with me on the outside when the outside was not really popular at Richmond.

Winning that race meant a lot to me because that was the same year that he had beaten me at Darlington in another race in which we had run side by side, and he ended up winning.

So those two races really stand out at the top of the list of accomplishments, for sure.