Burton, Kenseth charging but moaning about COT

LOUDON, N.H. -- Matt Kenseth is a champion, and Jeff Burton, a champion without a ring; so there was no mistaking the fact Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway that both men were none too pleased with top-10 finishes -- no matter where they came from.

Burton, who once led all 300 laps at NHIS -- but with a car that today qualifies as ancient history in comparison to the current Car of Tomorrow -- started 26th in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and drove up to seventh at the end.

Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Jeff Burton

COT Results

Kenseth and Burton

Site	Kenseth	Burton
Bristol	11	2
Martinsville	10	6
Phoenix	5	13
Richmond	10	43
Darlington	7	10
Dover	5	12
Sonoma	34	3
Loudon	9	7

Kenseth, whose No. 17 Roush Racing Ford team has struggled mightily with the COT despite using it to maintain third in the Nextel Cup driver standings, started 30th and finished ninth.

But both men went almost as fast racing to the helicopter pad to leave the facility after the race as they did on the beguiling, flat 1-mile oval.

"We did end up passing cars on pit road and made some good adjustments and got it better, but we're not good enough to beat these guys," Kenseth said while hustling along, two dogged media members tightly in his draft. "With these cars it's all about being in the front. It's really hard to come from behind and do much with them."

Robbie Reiser, who was Kenseth's crew chief when he won the last Winston Cup championship in 2003 and who's been on the box for all but one of Kenseth's 15 career wins, shouldered a lot of the blame.

"There's no question we showed up here, and the package we had in the car was un-drivable, and we had to work on it as hard as we could," Reiser said. "Going into almost every one of these [COT] races we've basically been about a seventh- to 12th-place car -- and that's the way we've run.

"Matt's capable of winning these races and so is this race team; and they all deserve that. So it's my job and [team engineer] Chip Bolin's job to go back and figure out what's wrong with these racecars and get them to a point where we can win a race."

Burton was intercepted by a reporter who jumped onto the back of his golf cart and made a 55-second ride to the heliport. That was all it took to convey his feelings. (Continued)