Posted by Terry Blount
At age 41, Jeff Burton is trying to become the first over-40 driver in this millennium to win a Cup championship. The last one was Dale Jarrett, in 1999, at age 43.
Jeff Gordon has a few years to go before he reaches to over-40 brigade (he turned 37 in August) but some people are starting to think the four-time Cup champion has lost his edge.
What happened? Some folks believe the birth of Gordon's daughter, Ella, last year changed his perspective and moved his focus away from racing.
Burton doesn't buy it.
"It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life," Burton said last weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Do you think if you have a kid you just wake up one morning and say, 'Well, I don't care anymore. I've got a kid and I love my child, so I don't need a trophy anymore.'
"Competitive people don't work like that. That's why when George Foreman retired, he came back. It's why when Michael Jordan retired, he came back. It's because you have it in you. Jeff Gordon didn't wake up the day his baby was born and look at the baby and say, 'Well, my life is all changed now, I don't need to race anymore.
"Does it work like that for anybody in here? Race car drivers are no different than anybody else. I think it's crazy that people think you can't have a family life, care about your children and care about your wife and not be competitive. That's absurd."
Burton is speaking from experience. He and his wife, Kim, have two children, Kimberle, 13, and Harrison, 8.
Gordon now has gone more than a year without winning a race. If he doesn't win one of the last five races, it will be the first time since his rookie season in 1993 that he went an entire season without a victory.
Burton knows the feeling. He had three winless seasons in a four-year span from 2002 through 2005. He also knows people were wrong to assume he couldn't win again, and he believes people are wrong if they assume Gordon's winning days are done.
"First of all, if anybody believes that Jeff Gordon forgot how to drive, they've lost their mind," Burton said. "If anybody believes that Jeff Gordon still doesn't want to win, they've lost their mind. Being successful is a whole lot more to do with the team and the whole deal working together than people give credit for.
"The media and the fans are really quick to give credit to the driver when things are going well. That guy is a great driver, he can do this and he can do that. Then, two years later, they are saying, 'Well, that guy, he's not as good anymore.' You've got to have stuff that will go fast."
Burton also said it's wrong for people to use Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's Hendrick Motorsports teammate, as a comparison to say Gordon is slipping.
"You can have something that works really, really well for one guy but it doesn't work well for you," Burton said. "That's part of the process of getting the right group of people together."
Burton used another sport to make his point.
"We can argue about who the best quarterback is in the NFL," he said. "But you could put the very best quarterback in a situation where he doesn't look like the best quarterback. And you could put the worst quarterback in a situation where he looks pretty good.
"It's important to understand that you've got to have the right combination together at the right time. Jeff Gordon is one part of the puzzle, but it takes everything. You can't just have one piece of the puzzle working and think you're going to have a lot of success."
Gordon is eighth in the Chase standings with 10 top-5s and 15 top-10s this season.
"I'd venture to say there are probably 40 teams that would kill to have the kind of year he's had," Burton said. "They haven't had a terrible year. They just haven't been able to knock some wins off, which obviously is what we're here to do. Jeff Gordon hasn't forgotten how to win races."
