Jeff Burton's Bristol Diary: Wednesday

By: TriCities Staff | TriCities.com
Published: August 20, 2009

I can’t tell you how excited I am about returning to Bristol Motor Speedway. Not only is it a quick trip from home, but it’s a track that has been pretty good to me, thankfully.

Bristol is a great race track. It’s stressful when you are racing for points – it makes it tough. On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun. It’s very physical and very competitive. It is an emotionally draining race, as well as being physically draining. There’s never a chance to take a break. It’s challenging and can be very rewarding, but it can also break your heart pretty quickly.

We always go to Bristol with high hopes and, for some reason, we run better in the night races than we do in the spring races. Hopefully, we can capitalize on that.

A lot of people ask me if the new surface has produced a race that is exciting for fans to watch. I think it depends on your definition of “exciting.” Some fans say the racing is exciting, and some say the wrecking was exciting.

We wreck less than we used to at Bristol because now we have options. You can choose what line you want to drive. You don’t have to just run the bottom groove and knock someone out of the way to get by them. To me, the racing is a lot better. The wrecking is less.

If you want to watch a race, then the new track is a lot better. If you want to watch turmoil and wrecks, then you would have liked the old track better.

But, Bristol is still the same in the sense that it’s still an intense race. It’s very easy to get into a wreck, and it’s easy to cause one. That hasn’t changed at all. But, the fact that we have escape routes now, so to speak, that you don’t have to knock someone out of the way makes a huge difference.

Speaking of fans, the fans who come out to Bristol are amazing. They fill the grandstands and are always on their feet. I get chills every time I go to driver introductions there because you can just feel the energy and excitement. The fans are the backbone of our sport and are just about as passionate about racing as the drivers are.

I’m looking forward to meeting some fans tonight at the Walmart store, located at 220 Century Boulevard in Bristol, Tenn., just a couple of miles east of the speedway. On behalf of Prilosec OTC, I’ll be signing autographs from 7-8 p.m.

Be sure to stop by and say hello!

Veteran NASCAR Sprint Cup Jeff Burton is writing a daily diary about his experiences in Bristol and at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Herald Courier.