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One bad race puts Burton in bad spot
Driver’s once-certain spot in the Chase now appears in jeopardy.
By JIM PEDLEY
The Kansas City Star

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jeff Burton is now looking up from ninth place in the Nextel Cup points race after his 42nd-place finish at Michigan.

Last week at this time, Jeff Burton was one of those, warm, yellow smiley-faced Nextel Cup stories.

This week, he’s a hard-luck story.

All because of an engine problem.

Burton arrived at Michigan International Speedway for last weekend’s race fourth in points. While he hadn’t won a race in 2006, he had not finished out of the top 15 since Martinsville in early April.

He was putting together a solid, consistent run into the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship.

But early in the race at Michigan, solid and consistent went away.

His car slowed, and he limped it into the garages. In the final box score, he was listed 42nd — next to last.

Worst of all, he fell to ninth in the points standings.

Now, suddenly, Burton has fallen into a fight to remain in the top 10 and make the Chase. He is just 84 points up on Kasey Kahne, who heads to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend 11th.

Burton was cool but disappointed when he got out of his car last weekend.

“This happens to everybody, and right now we’re in the heat of the points race,” he said.

Burton’s engines — and those of Richard Childress Racing teammates Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick — had been pretty reliable up until Sunday.

But Bowyer also suffered an engine problem at Michigan. It happened with just a couple of laps to go and Bowyer in contention for a top-five finish.

Normally, when teammate’s engines fail in the same race, there can be cause for concern. Concern that the problems, if related, can pop up again.

The initial diagnosis at Childress Racing was that the Burton and Bowyer problems were not related.

“It looks like we just ran out of oil,” said Gil Martin, Bowyer’s crew chief.

Burton thought he might have had a broken valve. When asked whether he was disappointed in losing his comfort cushion in points with the bad finish, he said he never felt as if he had one.

Points leader Jimmie Johnson said Burton’s fall in the standings did not go unnoticed in his garage.

“You have a bad day in our sport and you lose a lot of ground,” Johnson said. “A lot can change.”

After climbing out of his car for good at Michigan, Burton huddled his team around him.

“I just wanted to remind everybody that this is a good race team and this happens to everybody,” Burton said he told his crew. “Today was our turn, and we’re not going to get down about this.”

I really hope Jeff can make the race for the chase