Burton roars to second win

Monday, Oct. 29, 2001 | 10:53 a.m.

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- It would have been easy for Jeff Burton to throw in the towel midway through the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup season.

Projected by many to be a contender for the championship this year after finishing third in 2000, Burton got off to a slow start this season and struggled through the first two-thirds of the campaign.

Burton's patience and perseverance were rewarded Sunday with his second win of the season in the Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

"I'm proud of everyone on our team because a lot of teams wouldn't have held up to what we've been through," said Burton, who is 10th in Winston Cup points. "There would have been a lot of fighting amongst themselves, there would have been a lot of finger pointing, there would have been a tremendous amount of stress over and beyond the stress you already have from not running well.

"For the most part, we've been able to not have that. The sign of a person's integrity and a person's true character is when things aren't going well. Everybody gets along great when things are going fine and when things aren't going fine, you really find out who is tough and you find out who is committed to the program."

Burton started off with an ill-handling car and his Roush Racing crew fine-tuned it throughout the race until he was able to run away from the pack late in the race and post his second straight win at PIR.

"We didn't always have the best car today," Burton said. "It started early in the race; we weren't handling very well and I was complaining. Ten laps into the race I was saying we screwed up and didn't run the right sway bar."

Burton, who led five times for 102 laps, passed Mike Wallace with 34 laps remaining and raced to a 2.645-second victory over Wallace and Ricky Rudd before a crowd estimated at 100,000.

Burton admitted to some nervous moments while he raced Wallace side-by-side for several laps before completing the pass between the third and fourth turns on lap 279.

"I knew Mike Wallace was going to do everything he could to keep me behind him," Burton said. "He's obviously never won a Winston Cup race and he's in the position of what appears to be that he's auditioning for a job.

"You take a guy that's auditioning for a job and wanting to win his first Winston Cup race in only his fourth start in that car (and) that's going to be an aggressive guy to get by. He's already an aggressive driver and I figured he'd be that much more. He was very aggressive (but) he raced me clean."

Matt Kenseth finish fourth as Ford swept the top four spots and Tony Stewart was fifth in a Pontiac. Rookie Kurt Busch of Las Vegas finished 22nd despite starting 41st in the 43-car field.

Wallace, who posted his career-best Winston Cup finish, was thrilled with his runner-up showing. Wallace took over in the Roger Penske-owned No. 12 Ford after Jeremy Mayfield was fired last month.

"I haven't been in the position all year to win a race and I was in the position today to do it," Wallace said. "That's what I've always wanted to do is win a Winston Cup race.

"Somebody said I was 2.4 seconds away from winning my first Winston Cup race. Well, that's as close as I've ever been."

Both Burton and Wallace were able to steer clear of the tire problems that plagued 10 drivers and led, in part, to the seven caution periods in the race.

A Goodyear spokesman attributed the tire problems, which took pole-sitter Casey Atwood and Rusty Wallace out of contention early in the race, to the unseasonably high temperature at race time.

In addition to battling Burton, Wallace also had to hold off a charging Rudd for second place.

"We had just been off all week long since we've been here, but all these guys on this Texaco Havoline crew never gave up; they kept working on this race car," Rudd said. "The car was real racy there at the end; I just got hung up there trying to get by Mike Wallace.

"When you follow traffic, the car pushes real bad and we fought that all day long. I guess we were lucky to finish third. We thought we might have had a shot for second, but it just didn't work out."

Rudd did manage to gain 15 points on Winston Cup points leader Jeff Gordon, who finished sixth, but remains a long shot for the title with only four races remaining.

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