NOTEBOOK | NASCAR

Burton still smarting: When the dust settles on the season, Jeff Burton will most certainly sit back and reflect on his career resurgence. But he's not ready to do that just yet. Burton is still smarting from the three-week slump that knocked him out of Nextel Cup title contention. The final straw came last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway when a flat tire caused him to crash and completed his free-fall. "I won't lie to you -- this has been a down week for us," Burton said. "I thought that we had done a really nice job in the championship. I thought we prepared very well. I think we came in with the right attitude." He heads into today's race at Phoenix seventh in the standings. Although he's still mathematically eligible to win the title, he's 184 points out and needs a total collapse in front of him to steal the Nextel Cup. But Burton also recognizes that after five winless seasons, 2006 will go down as the year he returned to contender status and helped Richard Childress Racing do the same. "I look at this year as kind of a character-building year," he said. "It has been a year that we have put ourselves in a position. It has been a year that we have proven to ourselves, which is really what counts, that we can do this, and we do deserve to be here, and we have to go take advantage of it."
Chase changes: As all of NASCAR waits to see what changes chairman Brian France will make to the Chase for the championship, drivers have taken to offering their two cents. Jeff Burton is strongly opposed to a separate points system for the Chase contenders, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to see additional points awarded for qualifying and victories. Everyone makes a convincing argument for their point of view. "You should not be judged on just the other guys you are racing against for the championship -- you should be judged against the whole field," Burton said. "If you are playing a 4-11 team (in football), you still have to beat them. If you don't, that still goes in the loss record, so that is the way this deal should work, too. When you are racing a team that is 35th in points, but they beat you on that particular day, then they beat you and I think your points should be received accordingly."
Associated Press
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