Jeff Burton set for 1,000th NASCAR national series start - MotorSportsTalk

Five drivers have amassed at least 1,000 career NASCAR national series starts in their careers: Richard Petty (1,185), Mark Martin (1,141), Joe Nemechek (1,073), Michael Waltrip (1,062) and Terry Labonte (1,013).

This weekend at Phoenix International Raceway, that group will grow by one as Richard Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton will make his 1,000th national series start in Sunday’s Advocare 500.

It will be his 690th start in the Sprint Cup series to go along with his 306 in the Nationwide Series and his four in the Camping World Truck Series.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that I have driven in 1,000 NASCAR races,” Burton said in a statement. “I’ve been lucky and blessed to have family and friends that have given me all this support.

“I also have good relationships with everyone that I’ve worked with over the years to show for it, which is most important to me.”

Burton got his first NASCAR national series start in a Busch Series (now Nationwide Series) race at Martinsville Speedway in 1988. Since then, his 25+-year career of competition has seen him achieve solid success and now, he stands as one of the more respected veterans in the Sprint Cup garage.

Among his 48 national series wins are triumphs in some of NASCAR’s most prestigious races like Darlington Raceway’s famous Southern 500 and the series’ longest event, Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Coca-Cola 600.

He is also the last driver to ever lead a NASCAR-sanctioned race wire-to-wire, winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2000 after leading all 300 laps.

Phoenix has been the setting for two of Burton’s victories. He went back-to-back in the Valley of the Sun in 2000 and 2001 while driving for Roush Racing (now Roush Fenway Racing), and has been running decent there in recent times with two Top-10s and three Top-15s in his last four PIR starts; he finished 10th at PIR in March.

“It makes it even sweeter to reach this milestone at Phoenix International Raceway where we have had a lot of success over the years,” Burton said. “The team had a top-10 finish in March at Phoenix and tested there recently. We expect to contend for the win this weekend.”

The future remains uncertain for Burton, as he is on his way out at Richard Childress Racing and has not officially announced where he’ll land in 2014. Last month, however, he indicated that he may be getting closer to doing just that.

Regardless of what happens beyond 2013 for him, it’s undeniable that Burton has definitely earned the accomplishment he’ll achieve this Sunday in Phoenix.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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