JEFF BURTON QUOTES -
What is your mindset heading into Pocono?
“It’s an exceptionally long race. I think it’s too long, actually. That race could be 300 miles and be a good race. New Hampshire is a 300-mile race, and Pocono could be 350 and I think the race would be better. I think 500 miles is a little too long. The shorter the race, the more intensity you have and the better the action is. I wish the race were shorter because I think it would make the racing better.

“Pocono is one of my favorite tracks. I really like Pocono. It’s a lot of fun. You have three great big long straightaways, you have three totally different corners and there’s a challenge in every corner. This year, we’re not allowed to change gears. In the past, we’ve been able to shift, and this year, they’re not letting us shift. That’s going to be a major impact in how these cars handle. You’re not going to have the benefit of downshifting going into Turn 1 to help get the car slowed down, nor will you have the benefit of the lower gear to get it off the corner. The things are really going to bog down off the corner, and they’re going to be hard to get slowed down going into turn 1. It’s going to be totally different than what we’ve seen in the past. Off every corner, we’re going to be slower than we’ve ever been, because we’ll be turning less RPM than we normally do. It’s going to be a big challenge to figure it out.

“They gave us the gear rule and they said, ‘fourth gear is this ratio and third gear is this ratio,’ and they’ve made it to where if you shift, you’ll blow the motor up. It’s such a big split that you can’t shift. It’s going to have a big impact on the race.”

Talk about the differences of the three different turns at Pocono …
“Turn one, you have to be careful not to get in too far. If you do, you tend not to be able to get in the groove you want to be in. You need to accelerate through the middle as quickly as you can. There’s a big bump in the middle of Turn 1 that causes some big problems, so you need to be able to run around that or have a good package that you can run through it.

“The Tunnel Turn is a very aggressive turn. You drive in there really, really deep and get back on the throttle really, really quick. It’s very aggressive.

“Turn three is a long, sweeping corner that if you’re not careful, you can over drive it and get your car messed up. It’s three totally different mindsets for three totally different corners.”

Patience a virtue, and how critical is it to have an early caution?
“Pocono is a place where it’s hard to get a lap down, knock on wood. You’ve got to be pretty far off at Pocono to get a lap down because it takes a minute to get around there. It takes a long time to get lapped. It’s one of those places where it’s not so critical to be so good at the start of the race. Even if you don’t qualify well there, it should be OK. But, if you’re going to have any success at Pocono, you have to have a good-handling car. You can’t have success in a car that won’t handle, I can promise you that.”

Pocono’s pit road…
“It’s not a smooth pit road, and you can pick a pit that actually makes it difficult to jack the car up. Pit road goes uphill and then it goes downhill, and if you’re at the top of that hill, one of those pits is actually located on top of one of those hills and that can cause problems. You don’t want to pick that pit.

“You don’t want to run out of gas. There, and the road courses are just places where you can’t run out of gas. If you run out on the front straightaway at Pocono, you won’t make it back.”