THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060682
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Jeff Burton, a third year NASCAR Winston Cup driver, is not nervous about being second in Cup points after three races.
``There's a heck of a lot less pressure being second than there is being 32nd,'' he said Tuesday.
And there's another reason: ``I'm sitting in a car I feel really, really good about,'' he said.
Burton is the driver of Jack Roush's new third Ford team, headed by veteran Buddy Parrott. And after opening the season with a fifth place in the Daytona 500, 13th at Rockingham and fourth at Richmond, he seems to be proving that Roush made a good choice.
The most apparent problem thus far in the Roush camp with the addition of a third team was the conflict between Burton and Roush driver Ted Musgrave after Daytona. Musgrave was furious that Burton didn't act as a team player in the draft late in the race.
``That problem was probably the best thing that happened to us, because it taught us pretty quick that if we worked together and we communicated properly, we're going to work well together. It taught us a good lesson in our very first race,'' Burton said.
Burton said he's surprised at how extensive the sharing of information has been between the three teams. He said his team learned some tricks at Daytona that may help Musgrave and Mark Martin at Talladega.
And Parrott said a lot of the spring combinations on Burton's car at Richmond came from Musgrave. But Parrott said there's a limit.
``We do share information on springs and shocks, but not the total package,'' Parrott said. ``Jeff is really relying on Ted and Mark as far as chassis setups, but we're going to do our own thing, too.''
MORE LOW-CAR LOWDOWN: Jack Roush said Tuesday that the controversy over the three low cars at Richmond started after NASCAR changed the way it usually conducts post-race inspection.
``In post-race inspection, one of the things that has always happened to us is we've been allowed to re-air the tires to the minimum recommended by Goodyear, because that's where they were when we (had the height test).''
The Roush cars of Martin and Burton, as well as the Chevy of race winner Jeff Gordon, were then found to be less than an eighth of an inch below the minimum 51-inch roof height.
Roush said NASCAR inflated the tires on the three cars to 50 pounds, at least 20 pounds above recommended pressure, to look for evidence of bleeder valves. They found none.
``What they wound up finding was a third scenario - some of the tires were leaking air slowly, just because of the wear and tear on the tires on the race track.''
NASCAR's ultimate decision was no penalties for the three cars.
``I doubt if they'll do that exact kind of inspection again,'' he said.
Goodyear, meanwhile, has had little to say about the tire issue. Stu Grant, the company's racing manager, issued a statement Tuesday: ``The Goodyear engineers were not present during NASCAR's inspection and therefore did not know under what conditions that inspection was performed,'' he said. ``We did see some high wear during the race, but overall they performed trouble-free.''
RATINGS UP: ESPN, which took over the Richmond Winston Cup races this year from WTBS, had its highest ratings ever for a motorsports broadcast with Sunday's Pontiac 400.
The network achieved a 5.4 rating with the race, exceeding the 5.2 rating of last April's Talladega race, spokesman Dave Nagle said. A 5.4 rating means that about 3,672,000 households were tuned into the race at any particular time. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Jeff Burton: ``There's a heck of a lot less pressure being second
than there is being 32nd.''
by CNB