Burton hopes things keep going his way
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) – Points leader Jeff Burton has finished outside the top seven just once in the first five races of the Chase for the championship. He’ll bring a 45-point cushion over Matt Kenseth into today’s Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, along with the fervent hope that things keep going his way.
Previous Chase champions, he said, “ran well but had a lot of fortune, too. From what I’ve seen, that means as much as anything. You can’t make your own bad luck.”
But racing, especially at a tight and tricky short track like 0.526-mile Martinsville, has the ability to take many variables out of a driver’s control, which puts the onus on drivers and teams to focus on what they can control and just race.
“At the end of the day, that’s all you can do,” he said. “You throw it out. You hope you throw the right pitch and hope they don’t hit it out of the park.”
In the eyes of many, virtually every driver in the Chase will have at least one bad week, and some feel that Burton has already had his. He was 27th at Talladega.
“There’s no question that we’ve had less bad luck than everybody else,” he said.
Jimmie Johnson has come to Martinsville in the past closer to the points lead than the 146-point deficit he’ll start with on Sunday. He said because of the physical nature of the racing here, and the likelihood that tempers flare, it’s unsettling.
“You can get turned around, you can cut a tire and end up on pit road from just some light contact and lose two or three laps on the race track,” Johnson said.
“This year, where we are, I am kind of excited coming in here; we don’t have as much to lose. I am kind of far out of this thing, but the luck may swing our direction.
“I have a suspicion about that for some reason.”
HISTORY AT HAND?: Jeff Gordon has seven victories at Martinsville, more than anyone else in Sunday’s Subway 500 by a wide margin, and could make some history.
With 75 career wins, he’s one behind Dale Earnhardt for sixth all-time.
Kasey Kahne leads this year with six victories, and marvels at Gordon’s total.
“I don’t think I’ll make it that long. I guess I’d better step it up,” he said. “People are going to have a hard time catching that kind of stuff.”
SPONSOR HEADACHES: Martinsville announced this weekend that it has secured Goody’s Headache Powders as a sponsor for the spring race for the next three years.
It will be Goody’s 30th year in the sport and the race track’s 60th.
PIT STOPS: The Kroger 200 was the 71st truck series race since Toyota joined the series three seasons ago, and Jack Sprague’s victory was the manufacturer’s 24th.