NEW YORK -- As Jeff Burton hurried down the street between the towering buildings, he caught in the corner of his eye a glimpse of a man moving fast to try to intercept him.

Sharpie pen in hand, New York Yankees' ballcap squarely on head in the middle of Manhattan, this Jeff Burton fan suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Or maybe he was just a NASCAR fan. To Burton, it doesn't matter. He's ready to preach the virtues of his sport to anyone and everyone, everywhere he possibly can.

“

I think one of the things that hurts sports are when the participants start making the rules. The fans need to make the rules. When you're involved in a sport from a competitive standpoint, there's no way you can have the perspective of a fan. There's just no way you can. Your perspective is just all about competition and what gives you the best chance to win. There are too many things that go on there to be able to make you objective.

”

-- JEFF BURTON

Moments later, after signing an autograph for the man and exchanging small talk virtually without breaking stride, the purposeful Burton burst into the massive high rise that is home to Sirius XM Radio studios. There were interviews to be done.

The driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing was whisked from one to another to another to another without a break. There were interviews with personalities from Sirius stations that feature comedy, country and, of course, NASCAR. Later, there were newspaper interviews to do, including one with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas for which Burton will be writing a diary in coming weeks. There also was at least one national television interview lined up before his day would be done.

One interviewer wanted to know who Burton would put on his pit box as crew chief if he could pick anyone in the world.

"I would pick Barack Obama -- because he's not afraid to make decisions. And it would be interesting for sure," Burton said, smiling.

A few minutes later, the tape no longer rolling, he smiled easily again and admitted, "That one will probably get me in some trouble with some of my fellow drivers."

Told he "looked like a guy who could bake a mean cake" by one interviewer probing for his off-the-track interests, Burton laughed and said he was more likely to "make stuff out of steel in my workshop," and shrugged it off as nothing more than "good redneck science."

Through all the joking and self-deprecating humor, Burton stayed true to his message of pumping up NASCAR and the Chase that will commence Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. As one of the 12 drivers who have qualified in the Chase, he was invited to New York for a whirlwind media tour that encompassed the better part of two days last week.

Some of the drivers looked at the trip to New York as an unnecessary evil at best and a waste of their precious time and energy on the eve of the Chase at the worst. Burton looked at it as an opportunity to sell the sport to the masses in America's biggest city.

"I think it's a good idea to have some sort of a kickoff deal where all the Chase guys are there and the media is there to kind of get it started," Burton said later as he sat in the back of a black SUV that was transporting him to his next appointed round. "I don't know if it matters where we do that -- but it's fun to come here for sure. We just need go where the market is, to be honest. It doesn't matter to me where that is. But I do think it's important for all of us to go somewhere to get it all kicked off."

History lesson

Through the years, Burton has grown to become perhaps NASCAR's greatest spokesperson, at least amongst active drivers. Jeff Gordon could give him a run for that unofficial title, but even Gordon seems to agree that it is Burton who deserves it the most.

"Jeff is awesome," Gordon said. "You can tell by listening to him that he's got great knowledge of the sport. He speaks from his heart. He's an honest guy who is pretty non-biased about his opinions.

"I always love getting into conversations with Jeff because I feel like it's productive. Usually, we're pretty close to being on the same page. It takes a veteran guy like him who understands the sport to be able to share those opinions that he has with others. He's a great spokesperson for us."

Burton had been driving in the Cup Series full-time for seven full seasons when Dale Earnhardt died in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Burton didn't realize it at the time, but his dogged determination in the coming months to speak out about safety improvements that were needed in NASCAR enhanced his reputation as a straight shooter whose ideas were worthy of a long listen.

"That's really what got it started, all the safety stuff," Burton admitted. "And I really was just ahead of the curve on that thing. I had been working on it before Earnhardt was killed. We had had other deaths, obviously, that really got the ball rolling for me in terms of thinking that we really had a problem that needed to be attended to. And so I became one of the more educated people on that topic, and I wasn't afraid to talk about it. I think a lot of people were afraid to talk about it for fear of the retribution that may have been involved, and I just wasn't.

"That's kind of how it got started. I think people respected the fact that I had educated myself about it, and that on top of that I was willing to talk about it and wasn't always going to be politically correct or popular in the things I said. But what I said were the things that I believed." (Continued)