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Sunday, March 18, 2001

Compiled by Chris Dolack

Roush Racing's Jeff Burton has finished fifth or better in the past eight races at Darlington Raceway. He answered questions Tuesday during a conference call:

Jeff Burton

Q: You're 38th in points, what has gone wrong this season?

A: It hasn't gone according to plan, but it's not from a lack of effort. It isn't from the fact that we have a poor team. I've made some mistakes and we've had some parts failure. We just have had nothing go our way. We just hope we're getting it out of the way early.

Q: When you get in these situations, how hard is it to stay positive?

A: In our case, I'm blessed with some really good guys. Obviously, nobody is happy with where we are. But at the same time, how people respond to these things is what's important. I've seen only effort and only more desire through all this. No one's gotten down on me when I've made mistakes and no one's down on the engine program for last week. We just look at it as a test. We're being tested and someone's decided to make it hard for us, and we've made it hard for ourselves. How we come out of this will determine what type of a team we are. We've certainly dug ourselves one hell of a hole we've got to get out of. We can approach it one of two ways: We can quit or we can keep chugging and fighting, and we'll keep chugging and fighting.

Q: Why has the entire Roush team has struggled this season?

A: We've had different problems. I don't think there's common ground for why we've struggled. We can't help each other fix the problem because I don't think it's the same problem.

Q: Are you surprised by the success of teams connected to Dale Earnhardt?

A: There's no question that Dale was a tremendous influence on a lot of people. He's done a great job of building a very competitive race team. It doesn't surprise me a bit that they're running well.