Catchfence

Kansas Details … In nine starts at Kansas Speedway, Burton boasts one top-five, two top-10 and five top-15 finishes. He has a 27.4 starting average coupled with an 18.6 finishing average and has completed 97.5 percent of laps contested.

Former Winner … The South Boston, Va., native visited Kansas Speedway’s Victory Lane in 2002 when he took the checkers first in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race after starting second and leading 48 laps en route to victory.

The Chase Report … In the Chase for the Sprint Cup’s first two events, Burton and the Cat Racing team posted a 15th-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when the No. 31 Chevrolet coasted around the 1.058-mile facility during the final two laps after running out of fuel. They followed that performance with a runner-up effort at Dover International Speedway, registering an average finish of 7.5 in the first two Chase events. Those two finishes place the Todd Berrier-led team seventh in the point standings with eight races to go before the 2010 champion is crowned.

What a Difference a Year Makes … Over the same 28 races in the 2009 season, Burton and the No. 31 squad recorded only two top-five and six top-10 finishes, ranked 18th in the point standings and led a combined 96 laps. So far this season, six top-five and 14 top-10 finishes have been recorded on the heels of leading a total of 390 laps in 12 separate events while sitting seventh in the championship point standings.

Welcome Home … Two members from the Cat Racing team hail from the Sunflower state. Chris Tidwell, mechanic on the Caterpillar Chevrolet, calls Emporia home while Aaron Schields, rear-tire carrier on the No. 31 entry, is from Goodland. Schields attended Kansas University and was a member of the KU club team where he wrestled 165lbs.

Making a Pit Stop … Prior to arriving at Kansas Speedway for Round Three in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the 2010 Chase contender will visit Dean Machinery, the local Caterpillar dealer in Kansas City, Mo. on Thursday, September 30 to meet with employees and customers.

Does your seventh-place run at Chicagoland Speedway set you and your team up well for Kansas since the tracks are somewhat mirrored?
“I was shocked we ran seventh in Chicago, actually. I thought we were going to lap the field. In practice, we were incredibly fast, but during the run, it just went away. We were never as good in Chicago as I thought we were going to be. It’s a challenge. It’s one of the difficult things about racing. It’s a huge challenge to make everything work. We were very, very fast, and I was really, really comfortable with the car at Chicago, so hopefully that will help us in Kansas.”

Where do you feel the RCR mile-and-a-half program is right now? It seems like the teams are strong and have a little bit of an advantage. Do you think other teams have caught up?
“I think it’s interesting. The mile-and-a-half stretch kind of goes into the summer and, if you start looking at my stats in particular, I’m not as good in the summer for some reason. It’s kind of contradictory of what people think about me. I believe this is an evolution. Teams are building better cars, driving them better and are learning more. Other teams are learning less. The teams that are applying what they are learning are the ones that are going to run the best. I believe that can be us.”

Kansas is the third race in the Chase. Is this a race where you re-evaluate some things?
“You can be out of the Chase in three races. You can either be out of it or you can position yourself to win it. Where we’ll be, who knows. The reality is we’re going to go to Kansas and race the best we know how, no matter what the situation we’re in. We hope we’re in the position to win a championship. Ten races is a long time. If you’re not learning and applying from the first race to the fifth race to the tenth race, you’re doing something wrong. Every race is an opportunity for us to learn as a team and as a driver. Hopefully, we’re there learning something that we can apply to winning a championship. I think you take each race for what it is. You go and race that race and not make it any more important than any other race. There are 10 races and they all pay the same amount of points. You can have a bad race in the beginning, or a bad race at the end, and they still have the same amount of points. You can’t get caught up in the chess game of where I am now. It’s an accumulation of all those points. That’s not to say if you’re 12th, 300 points back, you can say that you’re going to win a championship. It’s not going to happen. You have to be in position.”

Is there extra pressure when you haven’t won a race yet? Are you trying to accomplish two things at once?
“We’re racing for a championship. Winning races gets you more points and we need to get the most points. I’m not thinking about winning races for any other reason than that. In the back of my mind, I’m not saying ‘oh no, we haven’t won a race this season.’ I don’t think like that. Matter of fact, if you were to ask me how many races it’s been since my list win, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I don’t like not winning, but worrying about it doesn’t fix it. It’s on to the next race and you always try to do better.”