Race 2 Win: Nationwide Series Race Notes

Nationwide Series

Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 - Jeff Burton Notes

Jeff Burton
No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date: Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 – April 11, 2008
Venue: Phoenix International Raceway – Avondale, Ariz.

NOTES:

This Week’s Holiday Inn Chevrolet at Phoenix International Raceway … Jeff Burton will pilot Chassis No. 070 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable in this weekend’s Bashas’ Supermarkets 200. Built new in 2007, Scott Wimmer drove this Holiday Inn Chevy to a seventh-place finish last July at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis. He also captured the pole with this car and went on to finish second last summer at Gateway International Raceway. Wimmer finished second in June at The Milwaukee Mile with this chassis, eighth at Richmond International Raceway in September and second at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) in November. Burton drove this No. 29 Chevy to a third-place finish at PIR in April and raced to a third-place finish at Richmond International Raceway in May. Since then, this chassis has been outfitted with all the required 2008 updates.

Good Run for Holiday Inn Racing … Last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, the Holiday Inn Racing Team notched their fourth top-10 finish in seven starts this season and jumped two spots, to second, in the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) owners’ championship point standings.

Track Stat … Burton has competed in five Nationwide Series races at PIR, completing 100 percent of the laps. He has an average starting position of 9.2 and an average finishing spot of 6.8. Additionally, Burton boasts three top-five finishes at the one-mile desert oval and has led 171 laps.

Burton Bringing the Heat … According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics, Burton leads the NNS Driver Rating category (125.0) at PIR. The Driver Rating is a formula that combines the following categories: wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum points a driver can earn in each race is 150. The Driver Rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator.

RCR Nationwide Cars at Phoenix … In 25 previous Nationwide Series starts at PIR, RCR has posted two wins (Kevin Harvick, April 2006 and Clint Bowyer, April 2007), two poles (Harvick, November 2003 and Bowyer, November 2007), 14 top-five and 15 top-10 finishes. RCR cars have also led 402 laps.

Double Duty in the Desert … Burton will pull double duty this weekend at PIR. On Friday, he will race the No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series and on Saturday, the 20-time Cup Series winner will pilot the No. 31 AT&T Chevrolet.

Friday Night Lights … Live coverage of the Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 at PIR will take the green flag Friday, April 11 beginning at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The race will be televised live on ESPN2 and broadcast worldwide on Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the eighth of 35 points-paying races on the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series tour will air on SPEED the same day beginning at 5 p.m. EDT.

JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
What are the keys to getting around Phoenix?
“This will be the first short track, so to speak, in this year’s Nationwide Series season, and I think it is going to be interesting with less power. It is going to make corner speed extremely important. You are going to have to accelerate much quicker than you have and you are going to carry more speed in to the corner because your straightaway speeds are less. You are going to have to drive into the corner deeper and accelerate off. It is going to be a huge challenge to make enough corner speed to be successful. That is going to be the name of the game. If you can’t make corner speed then you are going to have a chance. It’s going to be a very interesting race.”

You tested the Cup car at Phoenix. Does that help your Nationwide Series program?
“There is nothing that we can do on the Cup side that is going to give us any information on the Nationwide side. The cars are so different. The Holiday Inn team just came off of a test at Richmond that Scott Wimmer ran and they feel like they had a great test. The test there helped us with our short-track program.”