Race 2 Win: UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400

Nextel Cup Series

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UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 - Jeff Burton Notes

Jeff Burton
No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date: UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 – March 13, 2005
Venue: Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Las Vegas, Nev.

NOTES:

This Week’s Race Car at Las Vegas Motor Speedway … Jeff Burton will race chassis No. 129 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable. It raced last year at Martinsville2 (finished 11th) and Phoenix (finished 11th) but has a new body.

Testing, testing … Burton and Team Cingular tested Las Vegas Motor Speedway Jan. 31-Feb. 1 in preparation for the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 as part of NASCAR’s West Coast test sessions.

Back-to-Back … Burton won the 1999 and 2000 Cup races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In seven starts at the speedway, he has claimed three top-five and five top-10 finishes.

Quick Pit … The Team Cingular pit crew picked up Burton a total of 18 positions in seven pit stops during the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway. With the exception of a new front-tire carrier for 2005, this pit crew has been together for three years.

Off week? Following the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway, Burton stayed at the track to shoot a Cingular Wireless commercial Monday, traveled to an auto show in Cleveland, Oh for a Chevrolet appearance Wednesday, March 2 and greeted guests at a Coca-Cola event in Louisiana Thursday, March 3.

Meet the Driver … Burton will signing autographs at a few public appearances around the Las Vegas area while in town for the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 race weekend:
Thursday, March 10 from 6-8 p.m. at Bass Pro Shops, 8200 Industrial Drive Las Vegas
Friday, March 11 from 6-8 p.m. Cingular Wireless, 2015 W. Craig Road, North Las Vegas

Up to Speed … The UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 can be seen live on FOX Sunday, March 13 at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) and can be heard live on MRN and XM Satellite Radio. Qualifying is set for Friday, March 11 at 5 p.m. EST and will be broadcast live on SPEED, MRN and XM Satellite Radio.

JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
As a two-time winner at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, do you approach this track differently than other tracks since you’ve won there?
“Well, we didn’t win there the last race, so we’re kind of in the position of returning back to Victory Lane. Las Vegas is a track where I’ve always run well and it should be the type of track where this team will run best. In all honestly, we went out to Vegas and tested pretty good, but not as well as some others did. We’re still sorting things out. We didn’t run that great at California. We ended up making the car pretty good during the race, but not great. We’re going to Vegas knowing we need to do better than we did at California and hoping to apply the things we learned at both the test sessions and the things we learned at the end of the race in California. We were a decent car at the test, but we weren’t the best car. We think we’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks that are going to help us out a bunch, but we need to use those things right now. We really need to go there and run well.“

Were the struggles at California a result of the new rules of softer tires and shorter spoilers?
“Our team ran much better in California last fall than we did this last race. I certainly don’t think you can minimize the effect of the new tires and spoiler. It’s more of a level of readiness of the changes – the tires, the spoiler and other things as well. We haven’t done as good as a job as some of the other teams adapting to the changes. That showed at California and those things were certainly factors. We can’t continue to let those things be a factor, we need to work it out.

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