Crew’s car adjustments helped Burton win

David Jones

Sunday, July 2, 2000 | 2:58 a.m.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Jeff Burton finished second in February's Daytona 500. On Saturday night, he was just a little better - getting his first win at the Daytona International Speedway with a thrilling victory in the Pepsi 400.

Burton started ninth and stayed near the front most of the night. He made his move to front on the 121st lap of the 160-lap event. He said the car got better as the race went on.

"It got better all night," Burton said. "We started out way too tight and (crew chief) Frank (Stoddard) and everybody kept making adjustments to it and kept making it turn better and better.

"Fortunately enough, it turned like it needed to at the end."

The win was worth $152,450. Burton remained in fifth place in the points standings, despite the win, failing to move up. Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Sr. remained 1-2 with Dale Jarrett third and Ward Burton fourth.

It was Burton's first win of the season. He finished fifth in his last three races in a row.

Burton said Jarrett could have wrecked him in the closing four laps after the restart if he'd wanted but gave his opponent credit, saying the finish was "clean."

"Dale's been a clean race car driver and there's really nothing you can do about it," Burton said. "You just race as hard as you can. If he chose to wreck me, I'm sure he could have. ... You can't worry about it. If someone wants to knock you out of the way they're going to knock you out of the way."

Burton said experience is a key to winning in restrictor-plate races like the Pepsi 400.

"I think (experience) is (important) and unforunately the only way to get experience is to get beat a lot," Burton said. "I've certainly made more wrong moves in restrictor-plate races than I've done right. ... We finished third, second and first here the last three races and each one of those races, I've seen how it got won and we were able to apply that tonight."

Stoddard said a win at a superspeedway in restrictor-plate racing is the ultimate for his team.

"Restrictor-plate racing is to me the toughest to win. ... Here you need the ultimate pit stop, you need good gears and transmissions and motors," Stoddard said.

He called it a process that has taken "years." And all those years of hard work finally paid off for Burton at Daytona on Saturday night.