Scott Miller went to Victory Lane with Jeff Burton last weekend at Dover. Credit: Autostock

Shop Talk: Scott Miller

Burton's crew chief on the Chase, the team and the competition

Richard Childress Racing crew chief Scott Miller created a fascinating irony last Sunday at Dover International Speedway, when he scored his third Nextel Cup Series victory in the past four seasons, with a third different team and driver.

But there is nothing ironic about the turnaround that Miller, Jeff Burton and their No. 31 team has executed in 2006.

Credit: Autostock

Inside the Numbers Jeff Burton in the 2006 Nextel Cup Series Track Start Finish Daytona 1 32 Fontana 6 5 Las Vegas 8 7 Atlanta 3 25 Bristol 18 34 Martinsville 20 33 Texas 21 6 Phoenix 37 9 Talladega 40 4 Richmond 15 15 Darlington 20 9 Charlotte 11 6 Dover 17 4 Pocono 5 9 Michigan 12 11 Sonoma 13 7 Daytona 39 15 Chicago 1 2 Loudon 2 7 Pocono 6 9 Indy 1 15 Watkins Glen 16 11 Michigan 1 42 Bristol 2 9 Fontana 7 16 Richmond 2 9 Loudon 22 7 Dover 19 1 Average 13.0 12.8 NOTE: 643 laps led

Along with Kevin Harvick, with whom Miller won at Bristol in 2005, they've taken an organization that had never made NASCAR's postseason "playoff" and come out of Dover with the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

On the eve of Burton's breakout victory last Sunday, which snapped his 175-race winless streak, Miller took a break while preparing for the Dover 400 to talk about the keys to succeeding in the Chase, and in this weekend's Banquet 400 at Kansas.

Q: Last Friday when he visited Dover's media center, Jeff said the team was not where it needed to be -- but obviously you're good enough to be in the Chase -- so in what areas do you feel you need to improve?

Miller: Our performance just has to step up just a small rung. But it's like it always is -- when you have to improve a lot, the steps are easy to make.

But when you get to where you're pretty competitive, to be extra-competitive or the winning car, that last little step is the hardest one to achieve. And that's what we're lacking.

Q: Does the Chase magnify that, and is there any difference in how you balance everything you have to do know versus any other time during the year, such as testing, car preparation or anything else?

Miller: The hardest thing to know in our business, is if you're having a certain level of success, is to know when to change to try to get better -- and to feel good about changing something that you've already had some success with.

That's really, really tough and we're right at those crossroads now because we've had a certain amount of success with the types of cars and the types of setups that we've been running, but we're still lacking that little bit.

And we feel like we've just about come to the point of refinement on the things that we're doing -- so we're doing a lot of soul-searching trying to figure out where we need to go, next -- and what problems we need to address.

Q: And I guess that's a tough one, isn't it? Because with eight races to go, you can't risk getting too far off track by doing something radical, whereas if you were at the start of the season, you might? Could you test somewhere now to try both ends of the spectrum and figure it out?

Miller: Well yeah, we have to figure that out and we probably will be doing a little testing here in the next few weeks. I don't have anything firm lined up, but as we're thinking more and more about some different concepts on some things, the need to test probably in the next couple of weeks has gotten a lot greater.

It's a fine line and a balancing act, whether to carry on like you've been doing or try to do something [different] -- and put yourself at risk of actually being worse.

But it's almost like we're almost at the point where you need to do that to get better.

Q: Is that a case where your note keeping becomes critical, and if you do try something and it doesn't work, you can easily get back to where you being more successful?

Miller: Proper records and proper analysis of data and everything that you do in this business is critical, but you also have to know that if you dabbled in something and it didn't bear any fruit, you can't just write that off.

You always have to have records, and you've got to explore all of the possibilities before you can say, 'no, that's not the way to go,' rather than taking one shot at it and saying 'that didn't work, that's no good, and we'll never go there again.'

So it's really tough [to keep up with and keep track of].

Q: Since you're always exploring and adjusting, to what degree are your cars prepared, not just for Kansas and Talladega and Lowe's, but looking ahead to Atlanta and Texas and Phoenix?

Miller: We have what I feel is a good, deep, stable of cars at the [shop]. I would say for Martinsville and Phoenix we know exactly what we're doing.

We're still going to base some car choices and some setup choices and whatnot on previous races, like what transpires at Charlotte [Lowe's Motor Speedway] may have some bearing on what we do and take to Atlanta, and things like that.

So we don't have the whole rest of the year etched in stone, but we do have a pretty good idea of what we're taking where, and all the rest of that.

Obviously the Homestead test [in early October] is going to have a bearing on Homestead so we'll be taking two cars to that test and trying to figure out which one we feel will be the best one to take back and race.

So there are a lot of things that are still up in the air, but all of the racecars that we're going to run at all of these races for the rest of the year could be on the racetrack in two days -- they're in that stage of completion, anyway.

Q: At a couple of races in the second half of the year, at least, such as Indy and Bristol, the car has been virtually dominant only to tail off at the end of the race. How do you file that away? Is it a one-shot missed opportunity, or do you look at the records and you can see where you got off-track?

Miller: We're really trying to put our finger on that. To say that those two races in particular, along with some others throughout the course of the year, hasn't been a big source of frustration would be an understatement, because we are frustrated about the missed opportunities.

We try to learn from it, but we don't have any tried and true answers as to why.

Indy, I think, is a racetrack where track position and clean air obviously plays a huge role in how the car works. We had the feeling that even though we led a lot of Indy, that if we ever had a bad pit stop or lost track position in any way and got back in the pack, that we would be in trouble because we were actually too tight in clean air.

And when that happened our feelings manifested themselves exactly as thought that they would, and it was just too tight in traffic. Now, if we could have kept track position and we could have had short runs to the finish -- if, if, if.

If the race would have gone our way, as far as cautions falling, nobody had a faster car than we did, but we just couldn't run the full fuel run as fast as some of them.

Bristol was a completely different circumstance. We had had a set or two of tires in practice that were much, much tighter than the previous ones that we had on.

We went the whole race good, good, good. We had no tire issues and the car was good all night, and on the second to last stop we put a set of tires on and went backwards.

By that time, you lose your track position, you put on another set and the car runs good but you've got no time to get back up through there, so it's just been very frustrating, but it's been for different reasons.

Chase for the Nextel Cup After Dover (2nd of 10 races) Pos. +/- Driver Behind 1. +4 Jeff Burton Leader 2. +2 Jeff Gordon -6 3. -- Matt Kenseth -18 4. -2 Denny Hamlin -18 5. -4 Kevin Harvick -54 6. -- Mark Martin -75 7. -- D. Earnhardt Jr. -102 8. +1 Jimmie Johnson -136 9. -1 Kasey Kahne -182 10. -- Kyle Busch -224 • Complete standings, click here SUPERSTORE •   2006 Chase driver hats!

Q: Your intermediate program this season, on the 1.5- and two-mile racetracks has been real good this season, so going to the 1.5-mile track at Kansas Speedway, what's your take on that and is it something you can put your finger on with five of the last eight races being 1.5-milers?

Miller: I think it's the result of everybody's hard work at RCR. The engine shop obviously has a lot to do with that. The bigger the track is, the more horsepower comes into play.

I think we've stepped it up from a body and aerodynamic standpoint and [on those type tracks] is certainly where that's going to benefit you the most.

So I would say it's those two things and developing setups that Jeff's comfortable with have been the biggest improvement. And it's not just been the 31 that's stepped up and benefited from those programs.

I mean, obviously the 29 [Kevin Harvick] and the 07 [Clint Bowyer] have been strong on those racetracks as well and it's because of the same reasons.

Q: Setup-wise, what is Kansas most similar to, or is it a creature unto itself?

Miller: Each of those big tracks, because of the grip level and the subtleties of the banking and the tires that Goodyear chooses to bring poses its own set of problems.

But it's probably closest to something like Chicago, but for all of those racetracks we've been fortunate to have a baseline setup to where we can be pretty similar unloading and tune from there to whatever the weather conditions and the track conditions are for that particular time.

So we just look at it as starting with our baseline, mile-and-a-half or flat track package and then work from there.

Q: Setup-wise, what's the most critical thing for getting a good qualifying run at Kansas?

Miller: You have to, and especially with Jeff, we have to be a little bit tight for some pretty good security, so he can be aggressive with the throttle -- but not so tight that the car doesn't turn through the corner.

And that's what we always strive to achieve with a qualifying setup and he's been doing such a great job qualifying this year that if we can give him what he needs, he can get the job done.

It's all about just getting it to turn good enough and to have good enough rear grip to where he can be really aggressive with it.

Q: Transferring that to the race, what's your critical setup concern in transferring that to 400 miles at Kansas?

Jeff Burton won at Dover just before the skies opened up and drenched the track. Credit: Autostock

Dover 400 Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Jeff Burton Chevy 2. Carl Edwards Ford 3. Jeff Gordon Chevy 4. Kurt Busch Dodge 5. Greg Biffle Ford 6. Martin Truex Jr. Chevy 7. Bobby Labonte Dodge 8. Clint Bowyer Chevy 9. Denny Hamlin Chevy 10. Matt Kenseth Ford • Complete results, click here Victory LaneJeff Burton celebrates in Victory Lane at Dover Top finishersKenseth, Edwards, Kahne and Martin talk about Dover Final lapsKenseth falls short while Jeff Burton gets the checkered flag Tough breakKyle Busch retires after engine failure on Lap 140 Heavy damageKasey Kahne involved in spin with Tony Stewart Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Miller: As with all of those racetracks, it's pretty much finding the balance of how free you can be in the beginning of a run versus how tight your car gets at the end, because I don't think anybody in the garage area can start out with a perfect balance at the beginning of a run on stickers [new tires] and keep that perfect balance throughout the whole run.

Basically you've got to start out too free, to end good and it's just a matter of [deciding] what part of the run your car is the best on. If you could come out to where, say the run was 50 laps, and your car was absolutely the best at lap 25, and you compromised up to lap 25 and you compromised past 25, you would probably end up with your best overall run time.

What we've been not as good as we should be at, is that we're too much better on the front end than we are at the end, so we've got to adjust our situation to deal with that.

Q: At Kansas, how much of what you're dealing with in terms of race strategy is reaction -- or how much do you set your car up for long runs, or short runs?

Miller: The trick to it is to have something that will take off with reasonably good speed but not get really slow at the end of a long run.

That way, you've kind of got your back covered no matter how the race plays out. But that's very, very hard to achieve. We've been stronger at those big tracks on the short runs and it hasn't panned out for us -- so we need to get better on the long runs [laughing].

Q: Looking at the stretch run of the Chase, what do you feel like, for Jeff and your team, is a golden opportunity to really do well?

Miller: We were really looking forward to getting the Chase kicked off at Loudon [New Hampshire] and Dover, which have historically been two tracks at which Jeff has done really well at.

As a team we ran really well at the first races at both places this season. So we looked forward to that. Even though we didn't run as well in practice at Dover as we wanted to, those tracks, along with Martinsville and Phoenix -- places where Jeff has been real good at -- are places we look forward to.

Q: What's your worry point in these last eight races?

Miller: Our big track program has been good. The only place, for us, that's really a big question mark -- and it's a question mark for everybody throughout the garage -- is Talladega.

That's just because of the crazy nature of the place and with the repave and all the rest of that -- as smooth as I'm hearing that it is, I wouldn't be surprised at guys trying to make it five-wide down there.

So that's going to be a wild race -- a very wild race. So I don't know, but other than Talladega we're really looking forward to going everywhere.

Q: To what degree are you just keeping track of your own house, and to what degree do you look at what else is going on and what anybody else might be doing?

Miller: I think you would be foolish, really, not to keep at least a little bit of an eye on your competition, you know? They certainly keep an eye on us so it would be foolish of us to just put blinders on,

But the truth of the matter is, no matter what little things you see on somebody else's car or whatever you think they're doing, you never know the whole story.

So you're best served by keeping as much track of what they're doing as you can -- which isn't really all that much -- but you need to focus on the things that you're doing and not so much worry about what everybody else is doing.

I think that's probably part of the key to our success, so far this year, is that we have, as you put it, taken care of our house. We've tried to develop some baseline setups and worked really hard at finding things that Jeff likes.

You're not going to be as inclined to find something that you can feel confident bringing to the racetrack every week if you're trying to keep up with the trick of the week that you think everybody else is doing.

I think you're much better served just taking care of your own business.