AVONDALE, Ariz. -- For all the noise and chaos, NASCAR is a sport built inherently upon order. Week after week, from February to November, from Daytona to Homestead, the same routine unfolds. Team transporters enter the racetrack and line up by points position, the defending champion first. Crewmen mill outside the closed gates of the garage area, waiting for the exact moment when they're allowed to go inside and begin work. Cars line up for practice in a neat row, again by points position, again with the champion up front. It's a familiar, methodical process that's never varied from, a procedure as dependable as the sun rising over the hillside that abuts Phoenix International Raceway.

Jeff Burton fits quite easily into this routine. Like clockwork, the Richard Childress Racing driver is in the media center on Friday morning, usually the first of the top 12 drivers to fulfill their NASCAR-mandated obligations to the press. Some hate it. Some tolerate it. Some try to avoid it by scheduling sessions immediately after their qualifying lap, when noise and frustration are often at a premium. But every week, there's Burton, in a fleece or golf shirt bearing the colors of his car sponsor, ready to give smart, eloquent answers to all the pressing questions affecting his sport and the world beyond.

Like president-elect Barack Obama, for one.

"I've been watching for a long time to figure out what this country was going to do," he said. "I think it's an exciting time for our country. I think there are a lot of people that are nervous, a lot of people that are excited. And it would be that way no matter who won. To me, it's cool that in some ways I'm really excited and looking forward to what could happen in the future, and in other ways I'm really nervous about it. There are a lot of good things that I see there and there are a lot of things that concern me. I don't know. Time will tell, and we'll look back on it and determine what happened here, but I think for our country, and even for the world, it's a remarkable thing for a young guy like that with little experience to be elected president, and of course the first [black] to be elected president. That's some special stuff. That's real special stuff."

Does he enjoy it? It certainly seems so. Regardless, he's very good at it, a master of give-and-take, one of those increasingly rare drivers who understands that the media has a job to do and that the relationship between reporters and competitors doesn't have to be adversarial. No wonder some see him as a natural for the television booth once his driving days are done. But you hear rumblings that Burton, a 41-year-old native of South Boston, Va., has bigger things in mind. It's no secret that he's interested in politics, as his detailed and quite even-handed reaction to Obama's election would attest. Could we one day see a Congressman Burton? A Senator Burton? A Governor Burton?

First things first. Right now the guy is still a racecar driver, and a good one, something that perhaps gets overshadowed sometimes by his reputation as a rock-solid, go-to quote. He's won twice this year, 21 times for his career, and by making the Chase for three consecutive seasons is debunking the belief that NASCAR is now solely a young man's game. He's a cornerstone upon which the RCR organization has been rebuilt. Is he the most aggressive driver out there? No. Has that perhaps cost him at some point in his career? Maybe. But you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone in the garage area who's more universally respected, or more willing to share opinions. Burton has been the definitive driver voice on safety since the days immediately following Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001, spending some of his own money to test new seats and headrests, frequently challenging the sanctioning body or its racetracks to do more.

“

We have people running NASCAR that need to be running NASCAR, and I don't see my name on that list. They work way too hard for me.

”

-- JEFF BURTON

So when he speaks, people listen. His opinions carry weight, not only because they come from a driver with a wealth of experience, but because they come from one with perspective. He's not all-racing, all the time. He sees the wider world around him. Who else would have Duke University basketball scores radioed to him during races? Who else would field a question on why Formula One seemed to have a more thrilling finale that NASCAR?

"Not every year is going to have a championship that goes down to the last lap and last corner," he said, referring to Lewis Hamilton's pass of Timo Glock at Brazil last weekend, which overtook Felipe Massa by one point for the championship. "Some years will, and some years won't. This year the World Series was won in five games, I believe. It didn't take seven. Last year's Super Bowl was a compelling Super Bowl. There have been many of them when I went to sleep halfway through the game. It can happen here and it will happen here, but it's not going to happen every year."

But Hamilton's dominance might. So why has NASCAR, the egalitarian meritocracy of major racing series, despite one diversity initiative after another, been unable to unearth a competitive minority driver -- while F1, the Bushwood Country Club of world motorsport, has a black man as its champion? Burton, fearless even around the touchiest of subjects, wades right in.

"The diversity thing, to me, I don't understand everything I need to understand about it. This is what I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt: I know the more young people that we can get in motorsports, no matter what race or gender, the more young people we can get into motorsports, the more opportunity we have to have more diverse drivers," he said.

"I saw a race when I was 7 years old. I bet you that almost everybody that comes [into the media center] this morning started racing when they were 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 years old. We can't take a minority driver at 17 and say, 'Hey, let's put him in a Cup car.' It doesn't work. He's 10 years too late. We've got to find a way to bring this sport to all young people. That's where it starts. How we do that, I don't know. I know for a fact that this sport is open to all people. How we extend the arm to bring in more young people and involve them in go-karts and quarter midgets and motorcycle racing, I don't know. But that's the beginning of fixing the problem. We can't fix the problem with an 18-year-old. We've got to fix the problem with a 5-year-old."

Prescient words, given that Hamilton had been on the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team's radar since he was 10. But then again, Burton can be quite convincing. His pick, as of Phoenix, for NASCAR driver of the year? "Kyle Busch would be my choice," he said. Why? "When you say 'driver,' I look at a broader scope and what he's done in all three series. Ultimately, I just think Kyle has done a remarkable job this year even though he's not going to win a championship. He walked into a new situation, a situation that hadn't really had success for a while, and immediately that car started winning and running in the front. And everything he's sat in this year has run fast, so to me, that would be who I would award it to."

He goes on and on and on, tackling subjects ranging from the free pass (keep it) to the more even competition that was supposed to be a product of the new Sprint Cup car (should see more of it next season) to why RCR hasn't been able to get over the hump and challenge two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson for a title (he's better off the truck). He fields every question with the ease and dexterity of Derek Jeter handling a double-play ball. He'd get peppered for hours if a NASCAR communications official didn't shoo him out of the interview room to go get ready for practice. It's only natural for one reporter to ask about a day in the not-too-distant future, when Burton slides out of his No. 31 car for the last time, and the possibility that he might go from driving in NASCAR to running it.

"We have people running NASCAR that need to be running NASCAR, and I don't see my name on that list," Burton said, laughing. "They work way too hard for me. But I have an interest in this sport, and I want to be involved in this sport, for sure. What that is, I don't know. I think I have six or eight years of driving left. I am seriously, honestly not even looking at what I'm going to do six years from now. I know I've said something about politics, but I could do that when I'm 70. I'm not thinking about it, I don't even want to think about it. I just want to pay attention to this."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer