JEFF BURTON QUOTES –
Heading to Watkins Glen, the second and final road course of the season, how important is a good qualifying run there?
“Qualifying is really important at Watkins Glen since track position is so vital. You have to have a good lap since you only get one chance, you don’t get two laps there. It’s crucial to lay your first lap down because it’s the only one you’ve got. Driving hard at the Glen produces speed. There are some race tracks that if you overdrive, you actually go slower, but Watkins Glen isn’t one of them. You have to get on the edge and go.

Talk about pit road at Watkins Glen and the importance of pit strategy.
“There are a lot of green flag stops. Typically you don’t see a lot of pit stops during the cautions. That makes getting on and off pit road a lot easier. The whole game about road course racing is getting on pit road as soon as you can and hope to get on there before everyone else and then get a caution and immediately you have your track position. It’s real important to be on pit road at the right time and the winning car will most likely pit under green and hope for the caution, which is exactly the opposite of what we have everywhere else.”

How much do you race the track versus racing the competitors at Watkins Glen?
“The race at Watkins Glen gets really crowded. Turn one is really difficult. Restarts are tough, everybody gets in there and is trying to pass by going three wide. But, there’s not room for three-wide, so there are a lot of wrecks going into turn one. Restarts and the start of the race are the hardest, most stressful part of the race because of that. The rest of the race, you can race the track. It’s very important to pay attention to the race track and hit your marks and have your car in the right place at the right time. On restarts, you have to do all that in addition to having all the other cars out there. Restarts are stressful but the rest of the time you pretty much worry about what you are doing with your team and not everybody else.”

The two road courses on the NASCAR Cup schedule are really a lot different. What are those differences and how do you race them differently?
“They two tracks are pretty different. Watkins Glen has much more of a superspeedway feel to it with longer straightaways and not as many corners as Infineon. It’s a much faster race track. Watkins is a heavier breaking race track because of the longer straightaways. They are both road courses, but the similarities end there.”

Watkins Glen has made some changes to the facility and to the track. What do you expect to see there?
“The run-off area in turn one was a real problem. In the interest of safety, they had put in a run-off trap there, but if you got in it, you always got stuck, lose a lap and pretty much ruin your day. There are usually several cautions because of that. They took out that trap and put in asphalt, which I think is much better. You can stop on asphalt, you can’t stop on grass and you get stuck in the traps. The more asphalt the tracks put down the better, in my opinion. Some other race tracks need to have less grass too. I also hear they lowered the curbing a great deal in the inner-loop. That will be a good advantage. Although, it will make more people think they can pass there and that may not be in our best interest. Those are the two major changes and I think they are both positive.”