Jeff Burton Quotations

The fact is, our sport is not as diverse as it needs to be.

When I came into the sport, rookies didn't drive good race cars. You drove junk. Rookies don't step in driving junk anymore. They step in driving top cars because there is no junk. They step in driving really, really good stuff.

We're going 200 mph. We're not thinking about being safe or we wouldn't be going 200 miles an hour.

New asphalt is no good. That's bad for racing. The best thing we can have is a really old track with old asphalt. That's when you have your best racing. And Texas is absolutely the best it has ever been right now.

I'd like to say that we had a great day and all's right with the world. This is a great way to start the season, but we've still got a long way to go.

I feel really good about what we're doing and all these guys are working really hard. The competition is tough. Everybody is getting their stuff together and we've got to do the same.

I don't think anyone has replaced him. His impact in the sport behind the scenes is well-known by car owners and drivers that were around in that time.

For us to excel, we needed to have better equipment than we had last year.

For us, every race is important when you've been knocked back on your heels and you're trying to get back in the fight. Right now, we don't have to dig ourselves out of a hole. If we keep running the way we're running, we'll get our wins and we'll do what we need to do in points. Our priorities have to be going fast. That's what we couldn't do last year. That's what I couldn't do the year before, or the year before that. That's what I have been able to do this year.

He went a groove up the race track to knock us out. Unbelievable.

We're not where we need to be just yet. But we can see it from where we are.

Going out early is never a good thing. We made our car as fast as we could in practice so that is a good thing. It didn't help us by going out third, but there is nothing we can do about that. You just start where you start, and get the most out of it. It is a tough race track, demanding race track.

He said it in a way that you couldn't miss it.

He didn't stomp his feet, cry and pout. He didn't lose it. He knew when the race was over it was time to be somebody different.

I threw it away after the first week.

I think that Richard and everybody (at RCR) knew they needed to move forward. But I also think that any time they moved away from something that they were doing, they were moving further away from Dale.

I was digging after the restart and it just turned sideways. I am disappointed that we didn't win or do better than that in the end.

I think we have things in place to make a lot of noise.

I think the responsibility message has been more thorough because they are involved in our sport than if they weren't involved in our sport. And if you think about it, someone was held accountable maybe to a higher degree because they are involved in the marketing of alcohol.

Our priority has to be going fast. That's what we couldn't do last year, and what I couldn't do the year before that or the year before that. ...When you go fast, you can continue to improve on going fast and you can start working on all the little stuff that makes the difference.

Our sport is not as diverse as it needs to be. I don't think it's from a lack of trying. But for our sport to be truly a cross-section of America the way we need it to be, it needs to be more diverse than it is.

Our sport, for one reason or another -- and we could debate for hours about why -- is not as diverse as it needs to be. I don't think it's from a lack of trying.

Right now the 2 car looks like the very best car. I like the way my car drives and I think we can do what we need to do with it. We've got a long, long race here and a lot of things can happen.

Matt and I are really good friends. He always races me clean and I always race him clean.

Matt and I are really good friends. And, he always races me clean and I always race him clean. I could have knocked him out of the way, but that's just not how I race him and he wouldn't have done that to me either.

Mark Martin taught me that you're never guaranteed to be in Victory Lane, and to appreciate it every time and I remembered that. I'm proud of myself for continuing to fight and give 100 percent throughout all of it. I never once didn't come to the race track and try, and I believe that'll pay off for me.

It does open Pandora's Box a little bit. I've never seen anything like this, and I'm not sure I like what I see when I look at it.

It is early, but it's better than being 20th. Right now, we're not having to dig ourselves out of a hole. ...But if we keep running the way we're running we'll get our wins and we'll do what we need to do in points.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but when I look at it, I see an extremely strong front bumper. I don't think it's going to keep anybody from running into the back of the guy in front of him at all.

I wasn't going to hit Kevin. I race clean every chance I get and the last person I'm going to hit is my teammate. Kevin has been real good to me as far as being a teammate and he would do the same for me.

Without a doubt, there's a lot of car owners and drivers right now that are thinking, 'Hmmm, am I behind on this thing?' ... These issues have indeed changed the landscape. No question.

Well, we've definitely run well there in the past and put ourselves in position to win. I've run second at Bristol and fourth at Bristol with this team. Every time we've been there we've been very competitive. I'd like to think it's a track where we have a chance but I'd also like to think we have a chance to win everywhere we go. Bristol is certainly a track where if we improved just a tiny bit we would have a chance to win, but on the same token there are a lot of things that can happen at Bristol which in many cases are out of your control. Hopefully we can pull it off.

We had a fast car on the track but we stopped and put on tires and we got too tight. On long runs we were really good. It was a solid day for us. We were our best when it counted and that is a good thing.

When you first make the initial impact, it still is big and it gets your attention. It's how you feel 30 minutes later that the big difference comes in.

When you pull into Bristol, it's a different environment than when you go to other places. How you have to drive the racetrack is so intense and so aggressive. Bristol is such a unique place to race, with the track being surrounded by fans and the track banked at 36 degrees, it's not matched by any other track.

We have drivers who think it's OK for them to do something, but it's not OK for somebody to do it to them.

Bristol for me is very much a rhythm track, especially in race-pace. One reason Rusty Wallace has done so well, and Jeff Gordon, is that those are pace kind of guys. They can run the same lap speed consistently.

Every team should have the chance to do a tire test. You have a situation that is not equal for everyone.

Racing is safer today than it was five years ago, but we didn't know it. People ask me, 'Do you feel safer today in a race car than you did five years ago?' No, I don't. I felt safe five years ago. I thought we were doing all we could do. I didn't know we could do more.

You're looking at teams that are going to do tire tests. There were teams that went to do tire tests the last two days. We're not testing anywhere, and with the limited testing, that is a huge disadvantage.

You question yourself. You question everything. But I'm proud of myself. I stayed focused through all of it. We're working really hard and trying really hard to get back to the top.

This is a difficult race track, for sure, but the rookies that we have are really good and they didn't just start racing yesterday.

There is time for both. When I am driving a race car I am driving a race car. But I take a lot of pride in the sponsors I work with.

Dale Jarrett's chance to make the Chase was greatly harmed by a guy who was pretty much in the Chase, who just ran over him,

That's the best wind we've had down here in all of testing and everything else. It just played in our hands, and we had a car that could take advantage of it.

It's like impossible to pass here. It's because of the shape of the race track, but the competition is so fierce, so many good teams and good drivers. You just don't turn left and pass people.

It's such a different environment, I can't even tell you. Ten years ago, knocking on somebody's door saying 'Do you have a bottle of wine?', they would have laughed at me. It certainly has gone more toward wine-drinking than just beer-drinking for sure.

Everybody is doing it and doing it pretty well.

It's in the drivers' hands. Drivers need to decide that we can do it the right way and it's no problem, or we can do it the wrong way and open up Pandora's box.

It?s big. Hopefully, it?s another sign that this team is getting ready to turn things around.

It's very much a mental race but very physical at the same time.

Any time we go to a track with a new surface, especially a fast 1.5-mile track, everybody sits on pins and needles a little bit. I think it is important we get through it without any issues. If you have issues, then there's a bit of a panic without a whole lot of time to do anything about it.

In all honesty, it's a matter of me not messing up. Today had nothing to do with me. The only impact I had on the day was to be a warm-blooded person who could turn the thing on and mash the gas.

I knew we had a shot a running well but I didn't know we could run that well.

I'm really hoping they're in it because I know the whole crowd will be pulling for them.

Before that, it was kind of a macho thing. It was like, 'Just get in the race car and drive.' I've never concerned myself with being very macho. I try to be smart, be educated and do the right thing. That has become more popular today than it used to be. People are willing to talk about (safety) now.

Certainly through change, some people get their feelings hurt, there's no doubt about it. Unfortunately, some of the people in some of the areas have lost the opportunity to see as many races as they had. But what we do is big business and what we do relies on a lot of people being able to see it.

You can go from having all your stuff together and really feeling good about yourself to really figuring you can't run a lick.

I think we're our biggest competition. I think the racetrack's the biggest competition. If we go and race the racetrack and try to go around the racetrack faster than our competition, then that's the goal. I look at it as a competition between us and the racetrack because it's all about lap time.

A great race car driver in a bad car doesn't make great results. A great car and a bad race car driver doesn't make great results. You have to have both. It's the combination of driver and car.

We lost three very young, very talented drivers in a really short time and that had a lot of influence, too. Certainly Dale's death was a huge smack in the face to everybody, but all those deaths in such a short period of time was awful. It forced people to look at it and say, 'Hey, this isn't a coincidence. There's something going on'.

I can't tell you the number of times I got out of my car on Sunday, the last year or two, to go to the airport and looked at my wife and said 'I drove my tail off today and nobody will ever know it.

I don't see any one person that everyone migrates to in this sport anymore. When you have an opportunity to pick the mind of a seven-time champion, that's a special thing.

I believe that a lot of it had to do with Richard's being a nice guy. I think that he was really nice, almost was too nice, to a lot of - not individual people but to the groups. I think he gave a lot of groups the benefit of the doubt, that they were doing the right thing, and wasn't dropping the hammer when things weren't what they needed to be.

He and Bill Jr. had a really good relationship. As Bill Jr. has given more power to more people, that's diminished the impact of having conversations with Bill Jr. a little bit, although don't think for a minute Bill Jr. isn't stomping his feet somewhere. I think it's much more of an open community today. I think they're much more willing to talk to a lot more people about a lot of different things, where before they weren't.

He and Bill Jr. had a good relationship. As Bill has given more power to more people, that has diminished the impact of having a conversation with Bill Jr.

The hardest thing that I've had to deal with is the understanding that I can't do everything. I just don't think that the driver can run the team anymore. I think he needs to be able to concentrate on driving.?The competition level is so big now, I need to focus on racing, not on the logistics part of it.

The first thing you do when you're in a streak like we've been in is you hide all the bullets in your house.

The last two weeks I really let them down. This feels really good.