1,000 Greatest Drivers: Jeff Burton
It seems like NASCAR's competitive artificial sweeteners did him in as a championship threat.
I started watching NASCAR races regularly right around the time Jeff Burton became a regular threat to win, so I definitely have vivid memories of his glory days even though a lot of the racing in some of his best years like 1998 and 2000 wasn’t very good. One of the most interesting aspects of his career is that I definitely think he was the best driver in 2000 without question and only lost the title because Bobby Labonte was luckier, yet nobody really regards him as one of the best drivers to never win a championship, while you can argue that several of the drivers who are routinely cited as the best non-champions (like Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, Harry Gant, and Tim Richmond) were never actually the best drivers in a season. I would take all four of those drivers over Burton myself, but it’s interesting no one considers him in the same league, particularly considering the very similar Bobby Labonte is considered to be a legend. I guess it’s because his mid-period in 2002 from 2004 was indeed really bad (although I still decided to rate his 2002 since he had the most Busch Series wins that year) and that came at the time when Roush was peaking and it didn’t seem like he had a significant injury and was at the age when many drivers would be in their prime, so that is puzzling. Nonetheless, he still certainly did enough to appear on this list. As for his best race, I have always been more impressed by the fall Richmond race in 1998 where he outfought Jeff Gordon in a race-long duel, especially considering Gordon had won six out of seven races prior to that and had an 11-2 lead change record that year. I suspect most people would automatically choose the Loudon 2000 race as his best, but I was around for all that and I remember that he was the only driver to run an entire race-long test there with a restrictor plate, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise he dominated that race when nobody else properly prepared for it and he did. That doesn’t affect my evaluation of his 2000 season in any way though, since he still would have been the lead share leader and probably led my teammate model without it.
