Race 2 Win: NEXTEL Cup Series Race Notes

Nextel Cup Series

USG Sheetrock 400 - Jeff Burton Notes

Jeff Burton
No. 31 AT&T Chevrolet
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date: USG Sheetrock 400 – July 15, 2007
Venue: Chicagoland Speedway – Joliet, Ill.

NOTES:

This Week’s Race Car at Chicagoland Speedway … Jeff Burton will race chassis No. 173 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable. This is the same AT&T Chevrolet Burton raced to a fourth-place finish at the All-Star Challenge earlier this season. Additionally, this is the same race car the South Boston, Va., native captured the pole with last season at Chicagoland and drove to a second-place finish.

Burton in the Loop at Chicago …

Stat Facts … In six starts at Chicagoland Speedway, Burton boasts one pole (July 2006), one top-five and two top-10 finishes.

Good Start, Better Finish … Over the season’s first 18 races, Burton has earned six top-five and nine top-10 finishes. He currently holds an 18.78 starting average coupled with a 13.00 finishing average and has completed 5,010 of 5,329 total laps (94%) to date.

Since We’re Talking Stats … Burton is ranked 10th in NASCAR’s Average Running Position category (14.1) and is currently the sport’s third-best Quality Passer – a statistic derived from the number of positions improved while running in the top-15 during green-flag conditions. He is 10th in the Driver Rating category (91.7). The Driver Rating is a formula that combines the following categories: wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum points a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. The Driver Rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator.

Double Duty … In addition to his driving duties with the No. 31 AT&T Chevrolet, Burton, a 24-time race winner in the NASCAR Busch Series, will drive RCR’s No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet in the July 14 USG Durock 300. The race will air live on ABC beginning at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and can also be heard on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio.

Mile-and-a-Half King … Burton’s NASCAR Cup Series mile-and-a-half stats include one pole (Chicago 2006), six wins (including this year’s victory at Texas Motor Speedway), 17 top-five and 28 top-10 finishes in 70 starts. He has also led 794 laps on one mile-and-a-half ovals.

RCR at Chicago … Burton’s teammate Kevin Harvick scored back-to-back wins for RCR in the 2001-2002 Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland. Additionally, RCR owns one pole, four top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 18 races at the Joliet, Ill., race track.

Birthday Wishes … Team engineer and Fairfax, Va., native Jeff Curtis celebrated his 28th birthday on Tuesday, July 10.

For Whom the Bells Toll? … Following race weekend in Chicago, spotter Rocky Ryan will marry Kathy Moore in a ceremony at Childress Vineyards on Tuesday, July 17. The newlyweds plan to honeymoon at the end of the 2007 NASCAR season in Maui. Ryan will resume his spotter duty the upcoming weekend at Gateway International Raceway for driver Scott Wimmer.

Special Guest … Chicago Bulls basketball player Chris Duhon will attend Sunday’s USG Sheetrock 400 as a guest of Jeff Burton. Duhon, a former Duke Blue Devils hoops player, will spend the day as an honorary pit crew member with the AT&T Racing team. He won the experience from a charity event hosted by Duke Children’s Hospital.

Catch the Action … The USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway can be seen live Sunday, July 15 beginning at 3 p.m. EDT on TNT and heard live on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 19th of 36 NASCAR Cup Series events will air live on SPEED Friday, July 13 at 4 p.m. EDT and will also be broadcast live on MRN and Sirius Satellite Radio.

JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
You led 60 laps in last year’s event and finished second. What are your expectations as you head back to Chicago?
“The AT&T Racing team has worked really hard and tried to be a little better. Chicago is one of those race tracks that we feel really good about. Our mile-and-a-half program has been our strongest this year and, hopefully, we can take advantage of that.”

Up until last year, Chicagoland has been a tough track for you.
“We haven’t run well at Chicago, to be quite honest. We’ve ran well there in a couple of the early races when we started racing there but then we struggled a lot. We were on top of things last year and the car drove extremely well. The competition is tough there because the car gets really tight. You want your car to be free and it’s hard to get it freer. We had a great race at the end last year with Jeff Gordon but he was just a little better than we were.”

Chicagoland Speedway is starting to mature. Does that means that grooves are starting to come in?
“Well, that just means it’s getting slick. The top groove has certainly come in. You don’t have to drive on the bottom (groove). There are more options now and that’s a good thing. I think the race track is getting better and it is certainly maturing, which makes for much better racing.”