BURTON Back to Basics

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Ask nearly anyone here who won the Daytona 500 last year and you probably will get a puzzled look.

“Was it Sterling Marlin?” is the usual reply. No, although it probably should have been.

“Maybe Jeff Gordon?” No, although it looked as if it would be most of the race.

“Golly, who was it?”

How about Ward Burton, the surprise winner who came from 19th place to take stock car racing’s greatest prize when Marlin and Gordon messed up about 12 miles from the finish line. Burton led only the last five laps, but you only have to lead the last one.

So Burton’s name went into the record book, right there with those of Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Bobby Allison, Bill Elliott and other legends of the sport who won the 500.

Burton, a soft-spoken, self-styled “country boy from South Boston, Va.,” slipped out of the spotlight last year when he began having problems finishing races. He won only once more, at New Hampshire. Six consecutive races with finishes of 30th or worse led to his ending the season 25th in Winston Cup points.

“It wasn’t what we wanted, but the more time passes, the more special winning the 500 becomes,” he said Tuesday between practice runs in his No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge. “I took my family to Daytona USA on Sunday and got pictures of my car there. We walked around and the more I saw, the more I realized what I had accomplished.

“At the same time, I know enough to know that we’re all starting from scratch this year, the way you do every year coming to Daytona. It’s been a great experience, being introduced all year long as the Daytona 500 winner, signing autographs and making personal appearances for our sponsors, but there’s work to be done between now and Sunday.”

Burton qualified 19th Monday and must race his way into the 500 in one of today’s Gatorade Twin 125 qualifying races.

“The Bill Davis Racing team has been struggling since we got here last week,” he said. “We brought two cars, one for [last Saturday’s Budweiser] Shootout and one for the 500. Neither one of them did what we expected, so we went back and got a third car, the one we drove last year at Talladega [where he finished 10th].

“If we can keep it out of trouble and not get in a wreck in the 125, we should be in good shape for Sunday. We’d like to get a top-10 or maybe a top-five finish Thursday, but we have to keep the big picture in mind. It’s only three days later.”

Although the perception is that Burton wasn’t a strong contender for the victory last February until Marlin absentmindedly pulled his fender away from his tire during a red-flag stop, a mistake that caused him to be penalized and sent Burton to the front of the pack, Burton believes otherwise.

“I thought we had a chance to win with 35 laps to go,” he recalled. “We were running with the top six or seven, slowly making little moves until we were solidly third when Gordon and Marlin got together and the race was stopped. Everybody remembers that.

“The pivotal moment in the race for us, I believe, came earlier, when Gordon and [Kevin] Harvick made contact.”

The incident on Lap 149, with Harvick trying to block Gordon, led to an 18-car pileup that knocked seven cars out of the race and damaged others.

“We were very lucky,” Burton said. “We were running right behind them and when Harvick started spinning, the dust completely blocked my view. All I could do was drive through the wreck and luckily I didn’t hit anything. I doubt if we missed by more than six inches. That’s what you need to do here, though, stay out of trouble until you get to the last 25 or 30 laps and then race like hell.”

Burton’s victory was the first for Dodge in 28 years, dating to Richard Petty in 1974.

Burton’s other passion is his Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conservation of natural resources that he founded in 1996.

“All of that excitement after winning the 500 last year, the quick trip to New York and all, was great, but I still wanted to get back home to my environment, to go out in the woods and do a little work with the Wildlife Federation,” he said.

“I realized, though, that any success I had on the race track, especially winning the Daytona 500, was what enabled me to get the funding needed for such a project. I think in the next year or two, we will really make a difference in conservation by building a model habitat in Virginia of about 3,000 acres where we can support a great diversity of wildlife.

“Once we get established regionally, we want to take the idea national. I am sure I would not have been able to accomplish this without racing. It helped introduce me to people who have similar interests and the ability to finance them, people I would probably never have met without racing.

“I have also been very lucky to have a grandfather who instilled in me the love of nature and the desire to save it. We spent a lot of time together out in the woods together, just the two of us, hunting and fishing. I don’t think he knew it, but he passed the torch on to me.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

RECENT DAYTONA 500 WINNERS

*--* Year Driver Car 2002 Ward Burton Dodge 2001 Michael Waltrip Chevrolet 2000 Dale Jarrett Ford 1999 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet Year Driver Car 1998 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet 1997 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 1996 Dale Jarrett Ford 1995 Sterling Marlin Chevrolet Year Driver Car 1994 Sterling Marlin Chevrolet 1993 Dale Jarrett Chevrolet 1992 Davey Allison Ford 1991 Ernie Irvan Chevrolet

*--*