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| | Wednesday, April 5 | |||||
Special to ESPN.com | ||||||
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Though Ward Burton will never be the featured character in anything written by the Brothers Grimm, he's teaching everyone in the Winston Cup garages a valuable lesson.
In the days of short-term contracts and short-term loyalty, Burton stayed the course with car owner Bill Davis during the good times and the bad. He never wavered in his belief that the greatest success is in something you build -- not something you buy. "In any part of your life you've got to have good people around you to be successful," Burton said. "That's what we've got. Bill Davis has stuck with me through the thick and thin, and so has his wife Gayle. "You all have questioned us a lot. But at the same time, we knew that if we kept on doing what we had been doing -- we were getting consistent. We've just got to keep doing what we've been doing. That is working hard at the shop and communicating." For 132 consecutive races, Burton climbed from Bill Davis' Pontiacs without a race victory. A relationship that started so promising -- with a victory in their seventh race together in 1995 -- had more ups and downs in a four year stretch than Wall Street. While his brother Jeff was running off to 12 Winston Cup victories, Ward remained a one-hit wonder. "We've gone through a lot in this time from Rockingham (in 1995) to here," Burton, 38, said. "I can't think of a better place for it to happen than here. I think it is just gratifying to go through what we have gone through -- particularly Bill and me and his team. We've got the same people with some new blood in the team. The chemistry and all is there. "We've grown a lot, and it is just real gratifying to have that accomplishment together." If Burton would have listened to his accountant instead of his heart, he could have bailed on Davis long ago. When some of the best car owners in racing went looking for a driver, they always looked Ward's way. Somehow, Davis -- the owner who introduced a kid named Jeff Gordon to NASCAR before losing him to Rick Hendrick -- managed to hang on to Burton. But, Burton has never been one to jump on the Ritz train. About 20 years ago, Burton left college, resigned himself to the Virginia wilderness and set out to live off the land. He hunted, he fished, and he trapped -- a regular 20th Century Daniel Boone. As the technology revolution began to turn this world into a wireless one, Burton remained a simple man known for his distinct Southern drawl. Burton's in touch with reality, and the reality of Bill Davis Racing is it's a team on the rise. Burton, Davis and Baldwin won -- together -- at Darlington because they believed in each other. And, that's the morale of their story. Talladega gets an air-cut Jeff Burton wasn't planning on testing at Talladega Superspeedway. Heck, his No. 99 Ford finished second at Daytona, and he felt pretty giddy with the way his restrictor-plate package was looking. There's only one problem: Burton's 2000 restrictor-plate package has become an antique. NASCAR has tweaked its rules for the fastest superspeedway, and that has Burton befuddled. When the Winston Cup Series visits the 2.666-mile Alabama Autobon next month, the cars will be armed with a smaller restrictor-plate and a free-for-all reinstatement of the front shocks and springs. "I hate the idea of running less restictor-plate," said Burton, who followed Dale Jarrett across the finish line in the season-opening Daytona 500. "But, that's what everybody wants (the cars bunched up)." The restrictor-plate at Talladega will be reduced to 28/32-inch compared to the 29/32-inch plate that the teams ran there last season. The front shocks, issued by NASCAR earlier this year at Daytona, will not be regulated by the sanctioning body; thereby putting the handling characteristics of the nose back in the hands of the individual teams. "Daytona was a boring race -- remember?" Burton said with a sarcastic grin on his face, recalling the lack of lead changes during NASCAR's premiere event. "It was a boring race, the worst Daytona 500 ever -- because we didn't have a 28-car pack. "There were a couple of drivers in the NASCAR trailer after the Twin 125s (at Daytona) complaining because the racing wasn't any good. Well, it's those same drivers who are complaining at Talladega because we're all running in a big pack. You're either gonna run in a big pack or not. And, if you're going to run in a big pack, then the big deal (big wreck) is coming." Bristol's bride Michael Waltrip, driver of the No. 7 Chevrolet on the Winston Cup tour, is still searching for his first Cup victory after 433 starts. There's no telling what Waltrip will do if he reaches Victory Lane this Sunday in Bristol. When Waltrip won the Busch Series race in Thunder Valley in 1993, he promptly emerged from his car and proposed to his girlfriend, Elizabeth. "Michael won that race, and that had been the first race he had won since we had been together," Elizabeth said. "We were both kind of emotional at the time, and he did a Polish victory lap in honor of Alan Kulwicki, the first time anybody did that in Alan's honor. In victory circle, he pulled me over in front of the (ESPN) camera and introduced me and said, 'This is my girlfriend Buffy, who I am going to marry one day.' I thought that was really sweet that he was giving me a little more respect than just his girlfriend. "Then he said to me, 'You will marry me, won't you?' I said, 'Yeah,' not thinking it was a serious proposal." | ALSO SEE Ward Burton ends frustrating 4½ years with Darlington win Notebook: Darlington's spring race future in doubt AUDIO/VIDEO   Returning to Victory Lane has been a long time coming for Ward Burton.avi: 984 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 Ward Burton tames Darlington en route to the checkered flag.avi: 749 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1   The car felt good all weekend for Ward Burton.wav: 106 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6 Ward Burton had to battle his own emotions en route to victory.wav: 174 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6  | |||||
