JEFF BURTON QUOTES –
Driving your dad’s Ferrari around the back roads of Virginia, was that a bit of practice for the road course on the NASCAR Cup Series races?
“Well, I think all of us have been maybe guilty of going down some country roads faster than we needed to. Infineon Raceway is kind of like driving through the mountains. They have huge elevation changes, real sharp, low speed corners. Much more than Watkins Glen, it mimics a real tight back country road where you were driving a little bit faster than you should have.”

How much of an attitude adjustment does it take to race on the road courses?
“Certainly, it is different, but at the same time, it’s still driving your car as fast as you can drive it and paying attention to where you need to hit your marks and where you need to break. Obviously, it is different. If you watch road course drivers who do this all the time, they do it better than someone who doesn’t. But, we’ve seen that the Cup regulars can run with the best road course drivers out there. I think that is because they get in our equipment -- that’s their disadvantage.

“It is a different mind set. If you go into it thinking that everything is going to be different, I think that’s the wrong way to approach it. I’ve always gone into the road course races understanding the race track is different, but it’s in similar equipment to what we normally run. It’s important to get the car to turn well, not spinning the rear wheels and having good brakes. It’s the same as what you need at Martinsville, it’s just that on the road course you are turning in different directions.”

For qualifying you have one lap, is it important to turn in a fast lap, or a safe lap where you keep it on the track?
“Well, it depends on where you are in practice. If you feel like you can go out there and run a safe lap and still qualify well, than that’s what you do. If you have to go out there and lay it on the edge so you can pick your speed up, then that’s what you do. It depends. Because we don’t have an extensive amount of road course experience, there is a certain extent of going out there to try to not make a mistake. If you go out there and run well and don’t make a mistake, you can have a good finish. But to qualify well, you have to lay it all out there and go for it and be an aggressive driver.”

Is racing the race track important at a place like Infineon?
“I think racing the track is the crucial thing at Infineon. I believe that you have to pay attention to and race the race track. But, I do that everywhere we go. When you catch a guy and you are faster than him you need to get past him because he is keeping you from racing the race track the best you can. The opportunity for mistakes is greater at Infineon than they are at places like Phoenix. There are so many more corners so you have to race the race track. You have to pay attention to every corner. There are some corners that if you over drive, you won’t get into trouble it will just make your lap times slower, but then others that if you overdrive, you’ll get into the tire barrier and it will end your day. You need to learn where to be aggressive and where to be careful is important at Infineon.”