MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Burton's not a living-in-the-past kind of guy, regretting missed opportunities. Rather, he prefers to use his experience to facilitate better opportunities now.

But the Virginia veteran is an empathetic man who can relate to the trials and tribulations of younger drivers making their start in Cup racing.

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I look back at that, and the fact that we lost the championship by eight points, and say that built a lot of character in our race team to have it slip by.

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JIMMIE JOHNSON

Every aspect comes into play this weekend at Martinsville Speedway for Burton, who sits second in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings -- 69 points behind two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson -- after winning last weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Two years ago, Burton led the Chase standings coming into Martinsville, but blew the engine in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 33 laps short of halfway. He finished 42nd, fell to fifth in the championship and never recovered -- ending up a fading seventh.

"As far as what happened to us here in 2006, we did that -- not the racetrack," Burton said. "We made a mistake. The racetrack didn't cause us to make that mistake, so I don't look at this racetrack in the sense of, 'You owe me one.'

"I look at it really in the sense, to me it's a special place. We've had a lot of success here and we've had real bad runs here, too. I don't come here with preconceived notions. I just think we've got to go practice and see what we've got and work from there. This racetrack didn't cause us to lose the [2006] championship -- we broke a part and ultimately we're responsible for that."

Burton spoke on Friday morning, before all the day's on-track activity was rained out. Now he'll get a fix on his car's performance in two Saturday practices, but he insisted what happened in 2006 -- the first DNF he'd recorded in 22 Martinsville starts -- was ancient and irrelevant history.

If Burton reasonably gets through Sunday's TUMS QuikPak 500, he'll potentially have his best chance in 15 years of Cup racing to gain its most coveted prize, which would be his first national touring series title.

But he'll take that one step at a time, because since the October 2006 debacle, Burton's logged finishes of sixth, 12th and third -- including leading 88 laps in his last two races. He's optimistic. (Continued)