Jeff Burton
No. 31 Cingular Wireless GoPhone Chevrolet
Event Preview Fact Sheet
Event/Date: MBNA 400 – June 5, 2005
Venue: Dover (Del.) International Speedway
NOTES:
This Week’s Race Car at Dover International Speedway … Jeff Burton will race chassis No. 132 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable, the same car that was wrecked earlier this season at Bristol (started 24th, finished 36th) and run at Atlanta (started 38th, finished 15th). The front clip and body have been replaced on the car and Team Cingular will take it to the wind tunnel Wednesday before heading to Dover.
Stat Facts … In 22 starts at Dover, Burton has posted five top-fives and eight top-10 finishes
‘GoPhone’ … Burton’s Cingular Wireless Chevrolet will again carry the special paint scheme to promote Cingular Wireless’ new GoPhone, a prepaid or pay-as-you-go wireless service providing consumers with the ultimate level of freedom, control and choice of their wireless products and plans. With no annual contract or credit check, GoPhone is the perfect plan for the quick and painless wireless pit stop while still providing consumers with all of the latest products and services that have helped Cingular become the largest wireless carrier in the country
Up to Speed … The MBNA 400 at Dover International Speedway will be televised live Sunday, June 5 beginning at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on FX and be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and XM Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 13th of 36 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series events will air live on SPEED Friday, June 3 at 3 p.m. EDT and will also be broadcast live on MRN and XM Satellite Radio.
JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
What is mindset going to Dover?
“Dover is an exceptionally fast race track. For a mile-long race track, it generates a lot of speed. It compares to Bristol. It has a lot of the same characteristics as Bristol. You’re in the throttle a lot of the time, there’s a lot of banking and you really have to work hard to get your car to turn well. That’s what I go to Dover thinking; you have to make it turn well and keep it where you can run on the bottom. You don’t want to lock in so you can only run on the bottom. You want to be able to run different grooves. If you can do those things, you can run really well there.”
Is it better to be tight or loose at Dover?
“If you have to be one of the two, it’d probably be tight. Dover is one of those places that when you get loose, it’s very difficult. Too tight is a very bad thing. It hurts the right front tire. It’s easy to blow right fronts there because it’s so abusive on them. You really need to be neutral if you’re going to have success there.”
Will the softer tire play a role there?
“It will. I think as the tires start to wear out, that’s when you will see multiple grooves start to work in. Dover is one of those tracks that has a lot of different grooves. You can run all the way against the wall almost, and the more the tires wear out, the more grooves you see.”
Give and take …
“It plays a lot at Dover. The corners are exceptionally wide at Dover and the straightaways are exceptionally narrow. These are some of the widest corners that we have, usable corner space, but it narrows up a great deal getting off the corner and it’s narrow getting into the corner. You can be three-wide in the corner, but you aren’t going to be three-wide coming onto the straightaway; you’ve got to get sorted out. You really have to give and take a lot.”
How concerned are you about long green runs in what is a very long race?
“It is a long race. The green-flag runs at Dover are really what you want to see. It’s a lot like Bristol in that when you have green-flag runs, you knock a lot of laps off really quickly. When you have a lot of cautions, it takes forever. The green-flag runs are what you want to see from a driver’s standpoint.”
Pit Road at Dover …
“Dover’s pit road is very narrow. The speeds are high on the track, so you have to get your speed back down when you come in on a green-flag stop. You’re going so fast that as you get onto pit road, you lose a lot of banking. We saw last year with Matt Kenseth, he got into trouble getting onto pit road under green. It’s tough. You’re better off getting in and being conservative than you are being aggressive. The price you pay is too big.”
Time to go, how critical are tires and what do you have to do to get it to Victory Lane?
“As at every race, track position is very important. Having a good–handling car at the right time of the race and track position is very important. With the softer tires, we’ve seen more value than in the past of pitting and putting on tires, so I think it will be the same at Dover.”
