Burton, RCR improve as season nears the end (cont'd)

In the last three seasons prior to this one, Burton won a total of four races and finished seventh, seventh and sixth, respectively, in the final points standings. He said the recent improvement in this otherwise disappointing season by his standards has been brought on by a combination of factors, including but not limited to having Berrier switch to the No. 31 team from the No. 29 RCR car driven by Kevin Harvick.

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Jeff Burton talks about his runner-up finish at Phoenix.

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"Todd's obviously really good. But we've been working really hard on all of our cars, making our cars better. And I've been working hard on me, too," Burton said. "When you run bad, it's not one person's fault; it's everybody's fault. And it's as much mine as anybody's, so we've all been working hard and looking at ourselves in the mirror and trying to make ourselves better."

Burton, in fact, said he blamed himself for failing to win Sunday's race. He insisted that it could have been him in Victory Lane instead of Jimmie Johnson if he had qualified his car better. Instead, he qualified poorly and had to start near the rear of the field in 36th.

"We had him on speed [Sunday]; we just didn't have him on track position," Burton said. "Those guys are just tough. There is a reason they've now probably won four championships in a row. They're really hard to beat.

"We put our best effort forward and ran really well. But I feel like I lost this race for us on Friday. If we could have started up there, we would have been in a whole lot better shape. Nonetheless, it was a good day for us and we'll take it and we'll keep working."

The work, he repeated, will not end when the season does next weekend in Miami. To the contrary, that is when it will begin in earnest if Burton and the rest of the RCR gang are to have any chance of catching up to Johnson and the pace-setting cars fielded by Hendrick Motorsports throughout 2009.

"We've got a lot of work to do, still. We didn't win the race [Sunday]," Burton said. "We certainly had a fast car and we had a shot to win the race, but we didn't win the race. What we need to be about is disappointed when we don't win -- not excited when we finish second.

"It was good step forward for us, no question about it, and a little bit of a moral victory, I guess. But at the same time, the only victory was Jimmie's."