Resurgence of NASCAR’s Burton, RCR run on parallel tracks

Jeff Burton’s great start to the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season has helped resurrect his career and the fortunes of Richard Childress Racing.

While everyone has been questioning when the Hendrick Motorsports juggernaut would finally get rolling, whether Dale Earnhardt Jr. will find Victory Circle again and just how good Kyle Busch can really be, Burton has clicked off six consecutive top-10 finishes, including a win at Bristol.

After finishing 13th and 12th in the first two races of this year, the longtime NASCAR star is leading the Cup standings after the first eight races and enjoying a rare off week with an 80-point margin over Busch.

Burton isn’t taking it for granted and was philosophical when asked about the fast start for him and RCR teammates Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer, fifth and eighth in the points, respectively.

“We’ve gotten off to a good start,” Burton said. “All three of our teams have been good, but that doesn’t mean we’re going be good two months from now, (and it) doesn’t mean we’re not going to (be).

“I think the teams that take what they have today and find a way to make it better are the teams that are going to be good. You can’t run a season without getting better. If you don’t get better in this sport, you’re going to fall behind.”

For a while, early in a Cup career that began in 1993, it appeared Burton might be the guy to challenge Jeff Gordon for supremacy in the sport, winning 17 races from 1997 to 2001 for Jack Roush. But Burton went winless the next three years and things didn’t begin looking up again until after he moved to the Childress team in 2005.

He was winless and finished 18th in the points in his first season with RCR, but things came together after that. Burton won in both 2006 and 2007 and made the Chase for the championship both years, finishing seventh and eighth in the standings. His teammates also made the Chase each of the last two seasons.

The resurgence of RCR after a difficult few years following the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001 was no mere coincidence.

“Jeff Burton had a lot to do with us turning things around,” Childress said. “He understands the sport, the cars and he brought ideas and opinions on what it takes to be successful. He is somebody who you can talk to and brings a real positive attitude.”

By the time his career was revived, the driver from Virginia was also regarded by many in the garage area as an eloquent spokesman for the sport, not afraid to speak his mind on just about any subject, in or out of racing.

“I can’t say that drivers ask me to speak on a topic,” Burton said. “I won’t say that’s never happened, but it doesn’t happen on a consistent basis by any means. I do have conversations with drivers about the condition of whatever we’re talking about and how it can be better.

“I talk to a lot of people about that. I don’t know if I’m a leader in the garage or not. I mean, that’s for those guys to decide. But I do like being involved in it. I think that if you’re going to be part of something, you need to be part of it. I feel like I’m part of this sport and I don’t want to be just a driver.”

But Burton knows that driving race cars is his real job, and he’s optimistic about the future at RCR, particularly now that Childress has announced he will add a fourth car to his stable in 2009.

“Obviously, we believe it’s going to be a positive,” Burton said. “We have the infrastructure to support a fourth team. We expanded our shops; we did all those things. It was all with the understanding there would be four teams or the hope there would be four teams.”

But Burton noted there is a lot more work needed before the fourth car can be put on track.

“There’s going to be an influx of new people, an influx of new ideas and all those things are going to present challenges,” Burton said. “So it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be hard to do, but I believe we can do it.”

If Burton says it, you probably don’t want to bet against it. His record, both on and off track these days, is pretty good.