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Burton pushing for title

Jenna Fryer

Associated Press

CONCORD, N.C. – Jeff Burton failed to win a championship when he was anointed NASCAR’s next big star, the guy everyone thought would challenge for multiple titles.

He couldn’t win one years later when, after years of mediocrity, he suddenly found himself back in the mix.

A win Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway rocketed Burton onto Jimmie Johnson’s bumper with five races to go to decide the championship, and Burton is convinced he’s as capable of winning a title as he was when he was younger.

Burton’s peak started 11 years ago, when he started a string of five consecutive multiple-win seasons. In that period, he notched 17 victories and 102 top-10 finishes while slowly moving up in the standings. He finished fifth in the standings twice, including his six-win season in 1999. He’d moved up to third in the final points the next season, and went into 2001 as the prohibitive favorite to win his first Cup title.

But Dale Earnhardt died on the final lap of the season-opening Daytona 500 that year, and many people believed it adversely affected the safety-conscious Burton. He became a proponent of industrywide improvements, and for the next several years became more known for his stances on safety than his on-track performance. The wins dried up – he didn’t reach Victory Lane from 2002 through 2005 – and left longtime car owner Jack Roush for a fresh start with slumping Richard Childress Racing.

“It had been a while since I had been in the mix. So we were getting accustomed to all that again,” Burton said.

Nobody predicted Burton would be a factor in the Chase – not after the stellar seasons Johnson, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards had.

Burton’s win Saturday night moved him into second, gave him his first multiple-win season since 2001 and the confidence to make a run at the title.

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