Busy week for Burton includes visit to sponsor

As a Nextel Cup Series driver, his day is segmented into chunks of time that, for the most part, belong to someone else. This needs doing, he has to be here at a certain time to do a certain activity and it all boils down into life in the spotlight.

This past weekend, which culminated in the Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway, was one such period in Burton's life.

Jeff Burton visits a sponsor.

Let's walk through his weekend, beginning Wednesday at The Milwaukee Mile.

After testing his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet all day Wednesday and on Thursday morning, Burton left the track at 11 a.m. CT, grabbed a quick shower at the Waukesha Airport and jumped on an airplane headed for Massachusetts.

He landed at Barnes Airport in Westfield, Mass., about half an hour away from the headquarters of Lenox Industrial Tools in East Longmeadow. A quick drive, and he is on site for a two-hour appearance.

Burton is introduced by Lenox president Bill Burke to a gathering of employees and launches into a 10-minute motivational speech followed by a Q&A session. At 3:30 p.m. local time, the employees sing Happy Birthday to Burton and present him with a cake onstage.

After a 25-minute photo session, it's 15 minutes of media interviews, and then a half-hour tour of the plant. Included in the latter is the taping of a demo for corporate use. A meet-and-greet with company officials ends the appearance.

It's back to the airport, back on the plane and up to Concord, N.H., minutes from New Hampshire International Speedway. He arrived at the track at 7:45 or 8 p.m., ending a day that started in his racecar in one time zone and ended at his motor coach in another.

That's one day in Jeff Burton's life.

"We do a lot of appearances throughout the year ... 60 or 70, but we don't really do a whole lot of what we did last weekend, plant tours and getting to see how things are made," Burton said. "I find that really interesting."

Lenox, in its first year as one of Burton's sponsors, had the primary sponsorship at NHIS, which made for the fairly exhausting and complicated (to us) schedule.

"Some of them are pretty complicated," Burton laughed. "We go a lot of different places and the weeks are full of travel. It's not unusual to be going from one place to another, by any means.

"We don't do a lot of things on Thursday. We try to use that as a travel day, and typically we don't test on Thursdays, but it wouldn't be unusual to be testing on Tuesday and Wednesday and then go home for a little bit and then go do an appearance. It's a little unusual to stack so much on one day, but not really unusual."

One question that never seems to be asked is what Burton takes away from a day like that, where he is on the run all day long. (Continued)