FanHouse 2009 Cup Rewind: Jeff Burton, 17th

THE SEASON: Plain as day, the troubles struggled organization-wide Richard Childress Racing stopped what had become something normal for Jeff Burton -- a resurgence back to the top tiers of NASCAR.

After three straight seasons back in the final ten race Chase for the Sprint Cup, the wheels of Jeff Burton's battle to finally end up as a Sprint Cup champion truly derailed during 2009. Fortunately, things did better as the season waned, but the damage was done.

Burton led off the season with finishes of 28th and 32nd at Daytona and Fontana before capturing a 3rd-place finish at Las Vegas. In fact, after Vegas, Burton seemed to look like he was gearing up for another consistent battle to make the Chase by reeling off 8 straight finishes in the Top-15.

The summer stretch, though, bit Burton hard.

Following a 9th-place run at Pocono in June, Burton finished 20th or worse in 7 of the next 8 races. He went from 10th in points at after the Pocono race to 18th in points after the 8th race of that run at Watkins Glen. It was no different for any of his teammates, either -- proving that the RCR operation had fallen behind technologically in Sprint Cup.

Such was a point that Burton fully agreed with and often talked at length at, though not is a disparaging manner. Instead, Burton was pitching straight down the middle just as he always had as NASCAR's unofficial mayor.

Fortunately, Burton's bitter taste of a season ended on a better note. A 5th-place finish at Talladega was one of his three top-5 finishes in the last four races -- the exception being a 9th-place finish at Texas. In the season-finale, Burton even led 19 laps to show that Richard Childress Racing had indeed made a turnaround ahead of 2010.

THE STATISTICS:
Best Finish - 2nd, Daytona & Atlanta
Worst Finish - 38th, 3 races
Top-5s - 5
Top-10s - 10
Total Laps Led - 96
Percent of Laps Completed - 99

THE FUTURE: Burton will be back at RCR again in 2010, the final year of his current contract with the organization. Pending sponsorship in 2011, you can bet that Burton will be looking to sign back with RCR during the season.

More pressing and important, though, will be how the team as a three-car operation (likely slimming down from four in 2009 after Casey Mears' No. 07 lost sponsorship) continues to improve in the early part of 2010. Each of Burton's remaining teammates -- Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick -- showed improvement with the brand new race cars built by RCR in late 2009, and one would think the team isn't going to let up in the offseason.

Richard Childress won't see to it.

FanHouse reviews NASCAR's twenty best Sprint Cup drivers of 2009.