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THE MODERATOR: We have with us Jeff Burton, who is a Chase participant this year. He’s in eighth place in the Chase as we head towards Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. He also won earlier this year at Texas. He’s the first repeat winner there.
So what do you think, Jeff, going back there?
JEFF BURTON: Well, certainly we’ve had a lot of success at Texas. It’s kind of been either really good or really bad for me. Not many just mediocre runs. We haven’t run as well over the last three or four months as we’d like to run for sure. So as the year winds down, the intensity of wanting to have some good runs and running in the front just continues to build.
Obviously we’re pretty much out of the championship hunt, but fifth is better than ninth. And 10 is better than 12. So we’re going to go get all we can and try to get back on track.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jeff.
Q Jeff, I’d like you to go back and bring us forward from the time, I guess you had the dubious honor of being the first guy to spin out a Car of Tomorrow here in the test, where that car has come from here to now. And what you and your team have learned in the day and a half you’ve been here for this test?
JEFF BURTON: I think the wing has certainly helped a great deal with the stability of the car. Especially around all the cars.
We’ve yet really to see everybody’s pretty much running by themselves like we typically would in a practice. So it’s still yet to be determined how good or how bad they’re going to be with 43 of them out there.
But it’s come from the wing standpoint it’s come a long way. There are a lot of little things that have happened since then, but no real big ones as seen by me, other than the wing.
And we’re still in the exploratory phase at that point, splitter links, all that. They’ve made a lot of changes, but the wing being the biggest one.
Honestly, in the last day and a half we’ve learned we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re behind and we’ve got four months to get caught up. And it’s not because we haven’t worked hard. But some other people have just done a better job. We just can’t go as fast as we need to go with any of our cars right now.
So it’s good to know where we are in October and November rather than February. And it’s clear we’ve got some ground to gain.
Q Is there any point in this season that you could have done better, things could have worked out better that it could have been a better Chase for you, do you think or is it just the way the luck has evolved more or less?
JEFF BURTON: When I look at our Chase, we’ve had some good luck, and most of the things that have happened to us from a bad standpoint, I don’t consider luck. I think that we broke an engine at Talladega, that wasn’t luck. We did something wrong. We broke a fuel pump, part of the fuel pump cable system the week before that. And I don’t consider that luck either. I consider that something that was in our control.
And then we haven’t run as well. That’s in our control, too. Yesterday – and people always forget the good things that happen. People forget the things – Sunday, rather, we finished fifth and if that thing would have gone two more lapse who knows where we would have finished. We had tire rub so bad that I don’t know how – we wouldn’t have finished fifth I can assure you of that. So that worked out for us.
So we’ve had some things go for us and we’ve had some things go against us. At the end of the day, the thing we’re not happy about is the way we’ve run. It hasn’t been in the Chase it was before the Chase. We hadn’t run as well as we did the first part of the year. Seemed like when it got away from us we were never able to get it back. So we’re still fighting and we’re going to go get all we can get.
Q Can you maybe give a little explanation how much different is the driving behavior between the current Cup car and the COT car?
JEFF BURTON: As radical as they look, as radically different as they look, they do drive differently, there’s no question. But probably not as differently as one would assume.
Typically the struggles that we have with the current car, let’s call it, are similar to the struggles we have with the new car.
The new car makes overall less grip. It tends to magnify the problem more. But if I read the comments from what I said on Sunday during the race, they’re very similar to what I’m seeing today.
It’s just in a bigger degree. If we were 30% too tight now we’re 50% too tight. If we were 30% loose now we’re 30% too loose.
They just do more of the bad things more of the time and they do it to a worse degree. So they don’t drive as good for sure, but not as radically different as the two cars look.
Q I understand you have water in your fuel system, they found water in your fuel system after the race on Sunday. Is that a concern to you? Are you confident at all that it was just a freak thing?
JEFF BURTON: It is a very, very rare thing. And I don’t understand the logistics of getting fuel to the track. It’s something we just take for granted.
Obviously, I think that’s much more of an isolated case than it’s going to be normal. So it definitely had an impact on the race on Sunday, which was disappointing, but at the same time that’s been a very rare occasion. So I’m not concerned about it in any form or fashion.
Q The top two teams in the sport, I guess you’d call them that, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, aren’t here for this test. Do you look at that as an opportunity to gain two days of testing on them or would you rather to have them here so you can spy on them a little, see what they’re doing?
JEFF BURTON: What it shows to me is their confidence in their program. They’re comfortable with giving up two days of testing at a racetrack that we have the right tires, we have the right racetrack. It’s the best conditions you’ll ever get for a test. They have the confidence that they can do that and still be in good shape.
So that has a way of, to me, in some ways saying to the world, hey, we’re in good shape. In other ways the competitors look at it two different ways. You can look at it as hey they’re lazy and they don’t have focus on what they ought to have focus on, which isn’t how I look at it. Or you can look at it as some people look at it as kind of an arrogant standpoint.
I don’t view it like that. I believe that they just have confidence in their program. And that they don’t have to be here to be successful. That’s the way I view it. But it has – a few people have taken note and not been impressed. Others have been impressed.
Q This question was posed to me by a fan last week. I’ll turn around and throw it at you. Can you comment on the DEI/RCR engine companies decision, if we understand it correctly, to go all in with a new R07 collaboration at the point of the season in which they did, which I guess was earlier in the Chase?
JEFF BURTON: I think people have their facts confused about the DEI/RCR engine merger. We’re not 100% merged at the moment. There’s an effort to get 100% merged. The commitment is to be 100% merged, but we aren’t at the moment. We were at Talladega. And obviously we didn’t have good results there.
But going into Daytona next year, I believe the program will be. So I think that they have taken the right course of action in not just scraping everything and starting over and trying to do that with 12, 15 races left in the year. I think that would have been a huge mistake.
So we aren’t 100% merged at the moment, as far as who is building engines for what car, but there is an effort and again the commitment is so going into next year that is a completed project.
Q I know you’ve been totally consumed with the Chase. My question actually is about TV ratings and attendance. There’s some evidence, of course, it’s plateauing or declining in places. And I’m wondering, as a driver, is that something you’re aware of? Is it cause for concern on your part or any thoughts about what drivers or NASCAR might do to change those numbers?
JEFF BURTON: I’m concerned I’m the only one that couldn’t hear that.
Q On the declining TV ratings in places and some empty seats, is that something you’re aware of as a driver? Are you concerned and do you have any thoughts about why it’s happening and what NASCAR or the drivers might do to make the numbers better?
JEFF BURTON: Well, that’s a good question. I do get concerned when I see empty seats, as I’m sure everyone is. Obviously I don’t have the background to determine why, what or if. That’s just not my expertise. But I mean I think the quality of racing is good. I watch a replay of the races and I think the quality of racing is good.
I think we have to continue to work to make it a fun event for the fans. I think that – I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if all sports have a decline in TV viewership. I just don’t know all the facts. So I hate to make a comment on how to make something better when I don’t have all the facts to help me make that decision.
So I will say that any participant in the sport wants to see all those seats full, wants to see a lot of people watching on television, and we’ve got to do everything in our power to make sure we can do that.
Q Clint Bowyer obviously has a realistic shot at this Cup if he can get by the 48 and the 24. Is there anything you can do to help him even further, encouragement or anything besides what you do in the normal course of the year?
JEFF BURTON: In regard to ‘07? All we can do is try to be good teammates in every definition of a good teammate, that is providing any information that we have that has made our cars go faster.
I don’t know that we can step our program up in that area. But I do know that we have to be sure that we are working together in an effort to give them every bit of support that we can give them.
And that we should be doing on a daily basis. I think when you’re doing the old adage I give 110%. It’s impossible to give 110%. You either give 100% or you don’t. And when you’re working as hard as you can to work together, it’s hard to take that up another level. When you aren’t doing it well, it’s easier. So I don’t know that we can really do anything different, because I think we’re doing it pretty well right now.
We can always improve. But I don’t think we’re in the situation where we can improve enough in the short period of time that we have to benefit them. That’s the way I see it?
