Points leader Jeff Burton has finished
outside the top seven just once in the first five races of the Chase
for the championship.
He'll bring a 45-point cushion over Matt Kenseth into Sunday's
Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, along with the fervent hope
that things keep going his way.
Previous Chase champions, he said, ``ran well but had a lot of
fortune, too. From what I've seen, that means as much as anything.
You can't make your own bad luck.''
But racing, especially at a tight and tricky short track like
0.526-mile Martinsville, has the ability to take many variables out
of a driver's control, which puts the onus on drivers and teams to
focus on what they can control and just race.
``At the end of the day, that's all you can do,'' he said. ``You
throw it out. You hope you throw the right pitch and hope they don't
hit it out of the park.''
In the eyes of many, virtually every driver in the Chase will
have at least one bad week, and some feel that Burton has already
had his. He was 27th at Talladega.
``There's no question that we've had less bad luck than everybody
else,'' he said.
Jimmie Johnson has come to Martinsville in the past closer to the
points lead than the 146-point deficit he'll start with on Sunday.
He said because of the physical nature of the racing here, and the
likelihood that tempers flare, it's unsettling.
``You can get turned around, you can cut a tire and end up on pit
road from just some light contact and lose two or three laps on the
race track,'' Johnson said.
``This year, where we are, I am kind of excited coming in here;
we don't have as much to lose. I am kind of far out of this thing,
but the luck may swing our direction.
``I have a suspicion about that for some reason.''
