JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
Bristol is not your typical short track, but it’s a place where you have plenty of laps. What is your thought process going into the night race?
“There is certainly a survival mode that you go into when you race at Bristol. The best way to survive is to be aggressive and get toward the front. Track position is very important at Bristol. If you have a very good handling car with good corner speed, you stand a much better chance of surviving the night. If you’re too slow you tend to get run into. I go there really concentrating on making it run well, that’s 100 percent of the focus. When the race starts, you have to be aggressively patient and really smart. You have to make sure when you got a guy to pass, you go ahead and finish it out and don’t try to push anything. When you race at Bristol it’s so easy to cause a wreck and so easy to get into one. You just have to do everything in your power not to cause it.”

The night race at Bristol is spectacular. How much different is it to run the race there at night?
“To be quite honest, for the driver’s it’s not that big of a difference. There is a sense of excitement for the night race that we don’t have in the day race, but that’s because of the fans. The fans bring that excitement, they bring that intensity. For us, the race track doesn’t change a tremendous amount. It’s not a whole lot different from day to night. For the teams, it’s not that big of an impact. It’s more about the fans. You turn the lights on and it’s just a different environment.”

What was your first experience going to Bristol like?
“My first time at Bristol was actually driving at the track, I hadn’t been there as a fan. My father and I had a Busch car together and we went there a long time ago and ran the Busch race. It was quite an experience and something I’ll never forget. It was before all the grandstands enclosed the track. Over turn three, you looked out and saw the valley with all the trees. Bristol is something you can watch on TV and talk about, but the first time I got out on that track, I just couldn’t believe it and it’s something I’ll never forget.”

What have the changes at Bristol been like over the years?
“It’s increased with fan activity for sure. The fans have a lot of things to do there.I It’s a really interactive type of place with all the things the sponsors bring in for the fans to do. Bruton (Smith) has created a Colesium-type feeling in an outdoor environment at Bristol. That’s a difficult thing to do, but that is what he has created. The great advantage of being a short track is that there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. It generates the excitement and the intensity. The seats just completely surround the race track, which creates more noise and more excitement and it’s something that can’t be reproduced on the bigger race tracks.”

Bristol is not just a race, but also an event. How much of that excitement transfers into the garage area?
“There’s no doubt. When you pull into Bristol, it’s a different environment then when you go to other places. How you have to drive the race track is so intense and so aggressive. It’s a different mission. Even though the goal is the same, the way you get there is different. Bristol is such a unique place to race, with the race track being surrounded by fans and the track banked at 36 degrees, it’s not matched by any other track and you can’t compare it to another.”

Are there any ‘tank-like’ elements you put in your car for Bristol, stronger nose, stronger sides, etc.?
“You have to understand at Bristol there is a good chance you’re going to get into something with the nose of the car. So, you have to build the nose of the car so the radiator is protected and you can do a little bit of nudging without damage. The race track requires some stiffening of the chassis and steering components because it’s so hard on them. We run into each other so much at Bristol that there are definitely things you have to do to your cars to make sure you don’t get into trouble on the track or if you do get in trouble, your night is not over.”

Does the concrete surface at Bristol negate some of the changes you might go through from day to night or even in the course of a 500-lap race?
“I think it does. Concrete is more consistent than asphalt, it doesn’t seem like the track changes as much with the weather conditions. It does take rubber and you can see the race track get darker as the weekend goes on and that makes more of an impact on the track than the weather.”

With the track not changing much, does it make it more critical to have your car right from the start of the race?
“You don’t see many cars run bad a Bristol then all of a sudden get fixed. There’s not a lot of leeway there. It’s very important to start practice competitive. In my opinion, if you’re not good from the start, you’re not going to get good in the amount of time that this race lasts.”