HIGH POINT, N.C. -- The angst on Frank Stoddard's face tells the story.

One minute, Stoddard is laughing and feeling good. But ask him about his surprising firing late last season as crew chief with Jeff Burton, and in a split-second, the eyebrows furrow, the lips become parsed and his attitude takes a 180-degree turn.

	Crew chief Frank Stoddard, left, and driver Jeff Burton, right, split up near the end of the 2002 season.

Even though it has been more than five months since Stoddard was shown the door at Roush Racing after nearly five years as crew chief of the No. 99 Ford, he can't help but feel animosity about the way he was dumped.

"Certainly (there's animosity)," Stoddard said. "I was certainly surprised and shocked by it. What can you say? It was certainly a surprise. I never saw it coming."

Nor did many other people. For nearly five years, Burton and Stoddard were practically inseparable. They played off each other like master violinists in a concerto. Some even said the two seemed more like brothers than Jeff and his real brother, defending Daytona 500 champion Ward.

"I'm certainly confused by the thing," Stoddard said.

Stoddard still doesn't feel his firing was deserved.

"We were running second at Pocono and cut a tire; we probably had that race won," he said. "We were leading Michigan with four laps to go. We were leading Darlington and got into the wall, for whatever reason. That's three races right there before I get dismissed. We were leading Darlington, and then I got let go. We were running in the top-five at Bristol and then got into a wreck. We qualified third at Sonoma and had motor problems. We were running sixth at Indy and then had motor problems with 25 (laps) to go."

As a result of those examples, some might say Stoddard was unfairly blamed for the team's failures, not to mention it's overall struggles in 2001 and '02. Stoddard has tried to take the high road and prefers to look back on the accomplishments rather than the way he left.

"I can't control all those things," he said. "It doesn't matter. In the end, if they (Burton and new crew chief Paul Andrews) go on to win 17 races in the next four years, and they finish in the top-five in the points and they finish in the top-10 every year (Andrews is) crew chief, then it'll have been a successful move for him (Burton)."

Ironically, Stoddard has gone from working for one brother to another, signing on with Ward Burton and the No. 22 Dodge of Bill Davis Racing shortly after he was booted by Jeff.

"When you're dealing with the same thing for a certain point of time, it's hard to change," Stoddard said. "It's like getting remarried or something."

But the change is not much different, because there are many similarities between the brothers Burton.

"They're both hungry and they both want to win," Stoddard said. "It's too early for me to tell you if there's any similarities between their driving styles, because I only ran seven races with Ward at the end of last season. It's hard to compare. Both of them are more than capable of mashing the gas and going fast, and that's really where it ends for me.

"I just think it's one driver to another. We're going to compete next year against 42 other drivers. I could care less where Jeff Burton winds up in the points or where he doesn't end up, because we want to beat 42 people. If we were worried about trying to beat him, then we might end up 20th in the points. We want to try and go as high as we can and beat 42 people. It's just driver to driver. There's just more media attention because they're brothers."

For his part, Burton tries to make it clear his decision to fire Stoddard -- with the consent of team owner Jack Roush -- was nothing personal. It was just a matter of business. The team's business had turned bad, and like any good businessman, Burton felt it necessary to make a change. It just so happened Stoddard was the change Burton chose.

"I'm a student of the sport and a student of sports," Burton said. "Driver and crew chief or player and head coach relationships just don't last as long as you'd hope they could last. We were in a position where we were in our second year of not having the success that we needed to be having, and for anyone to think that we shouldn't make a change is wrong. We had to make a change of some sort. And, any time when a change is made, you're the one that the change goes around, that doesn't feel good, and it shouldn't feel good.

"I don't think Frank's a dumb person or a guy that can't get it done. I think Frank can get it done. We just needed a fresh look."

Burton points to the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a "perfect example" of what he's talking about.

	“	The one thing I'll say about Jeff is he gave me the chance in Winston Cup racing, so I'll always be indebted to him for that. We won races together and we had a great run. ”
		— Frank Stoddard

"Everybody said Tampa Bay had great talent, they've got this, they've got that, but they weren't getting to the big deal," Burton said. "They needed to make some changes. You can't just make changes and expect it to work. But they made the right changes and now they're Super Bowl champs.

"It's a difficult thing (to fire someone), man. I don't like it. It's the part of the sport I don't like. But this is a success-generated sport. That's what it is."

And while Jeff Burton is looking for renewed success in 2003, that's also what Stoddard hopes to find in his new home -- partly to show his former boss he was wrong in his decision. There's nothing like sibling rivalry to get a good controversy going.

"We'd certainly love to win the Daytona 500 again, and we think we have a pretty good shot at it," Stoddard said. "Not too many guys have won the 500 two years in a row. We'd like to be one of those that do."

But if Ward fails to repeat, Stoddard won't hang his head. Instead, he'll look forward to some of the other big races on the schedule. In the end, what's more important to Stoddard is that the No. 22 team has an outstanding year, even if it doesn't do all that well in the opener.

"I'm not saying that the Daytona 500 is not a big race, because it is a big race," Stoddard said. "I'm just saying that when I lay my head down on the pillow, it would mean more to me to win Indianapolis (the Brickyard 400) because I know that it is not just about circumstances that happen that day.

"You can go to Daytona, have the best car in the world by three-tenths of a second, or do nothing all day and somebody'll knock you out of the race. Or, you can go to Indianapolis, and you're three-tenths of a second quicker than the field there, unless you really screw something up on your own, you have a good chance of winning the race that day. Daytona is just not as gratifying as it was 10 years ago; the rules weren't as tight 10 years ago."

After talking about his celebrated breakup with Burton for a while, Stoddard finally relents about his animosity. The sting is still there, but the pain is slowly fading.

"Jeff and I have spoken at the race track and stuff," Stoddard said. "I don't harbor anything. The one thing I'll say about Jeff is he gave me the chance in Winston Cup racing, so I'll always be indebted to him for that. We won races together and we had a great run. This was a decision he wanted to make, he wanted to go on a different road, so we'll see which way the road takes him."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.