No place like HOME

NASCAR Jeff Burton leads Tony Stewart during Saturday's Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Martinsville Speedway is a laid-back little race track, but it can make a big difference in a pressure-packed Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Just ask Jeff Burton. In 2006, he came to Martinsville having led the Chase standings since Dover. But his engine blew, and he left fifth in the standings. He never recovered, and the Martinsville winner that day, Jimmie Johnson, went on to take the championship.

Like Talladega Superspeedway, the Cup circuit's longest track, Martinsville, the shortest, is a place where wrecks can wreak havoc on the points standings. The Martinsville wrecks generally aren't as spectacular as Talladega's, but they can be just as damaging from a points standpoint.

And because drivers circle the Martinsville track so quickly, lots of laps can be lost due to an untimely or unscheduled pit stop.

But Burton and a lot of others look forward to racing at Martinsville.

Burton particularly likes it, and he should. As a native of nearby South Boston, Va., it's his home track.

Jeff Burton celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the Bank of America 500. Burton's win Saturday night cut his deficit to Chase leader Jimmie Johnson to only 69 points. NASCAR He said it's a critical track as far as the Chase goes.

"It's a wild card, but not as much as Talladega," Burton said. "At Talladega, you can run well and stay out of trouble and still finish 20th.

"If you run well and stay out of trouble at Martinsville, you're going to finish better than 20th.

"It's really tight, a difficult race track, lots of contact and easy for things to happen there. All that makes it a place that is dangerous from a points standpoint."

But he relishes racing there.

"The track's really small for this type of car," he said. "It's a huge challenge and a lot of fun."

And Burton believes Martinsville, despite its location in a small market and its lack of the corporate suites and such that are fixtures at larger tracks, is an important ingredient in the NASCAR mix.

"It's a little like Darlington," he said. "You're not stepping back in time, but you're stepping back into how it used to be. I think it's fun. It's neat. The suites and chalets are cool, but it's also cool to do it like we used to do it.

"It has a place. It's good to have places like that to go to. It reminds us of our history. That's real healthy."

It's also special to Burton because of his own history there.

As a youngster, he attended nearly every major event at the track, and then he took his short-track car there to practice long before he became a Cup driver.

"I went there and tested a Late Model more than 20 years ago," he said.

"Back then, ducks would walk across the racetrack, and [the late track owner] Clay Earles would come out and shoo them away."

Burton said that in those early days of his career, a chance to race a Late Model at Martinsville was huge.

"I grew up looking at the track as a place of opportunity," he said. "And even though a lot of things have changed, it's still the same racetrack."