Jeff Burton Quotes (42 Quotes)

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.

3. The atmosphere. The heat, the humidity, the noise. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We ran mostly right around 10th all day, then the pit crew picked up four spots at the end and got us a sixth. We needed it - a gold solid run with no problems. And the way we've been snake-bit, I was damn glad to see the race end.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There's a great misconception about the points system, ... If NASCAR wanted to encourage more winning, they'd award more points for winning. The points system is not built to encourage winning, but better competition throughout the year.

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.

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

It's frustrating as hell. I don't think I could drive any smarter than that and I still get wrecked. I guess I'm better off being stupid.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,