BENTON: Burton still alive but barely

Jeff Burton is a realist, and it's refreshing to listen to one these days.

He is eighth in the Chase for the Cham- pionship standings with three races remaining, and he knows overcoming a 400-point deficit, although not mathematically impossible, is unrealistic.

"Obviously, we're pretty much out of the championship hunt, but fifth is better than ninth," he said Tuesday. "And 10th is better than 12th. So we're going to go get all we can and try to get back on track."

Jeff Burton, who drives the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, had some bad finishes during the Chase - he was 36th at Kansas Speedway and last at Talladega - but he refuses to blame bad luck.

"When I look at our Chase, we've had some good luck, and most of the things that have happened to us from a bad standpoint, I don't consider luck," Jeff Burton said. "We broke an engine at Talladega; that wasn't luck. We did something wrong. We broke a fuel pump, part of the fuel pump cable system, the week before that. And I don't consider that luck, either. I consider that something that was under our control. And we haven't run as well. That's in our control, too."

Things have gone well, too.

"People always forget the good things that happen," Jeff Burton said. "People forget that Sunday (at Atlanta) we finished fifth, and if that thing would have gone two more laps who knows where we could have finished. We had a tire rub so bad that I don't know how we could have finished fifth, I can assure you of that. So that worked out for us.

"So we've had some things go for us and we've had some things go against us. At the end of the day, the thing we're not happy about is the way we've run. It hasn't been in the Chase, it was before the Chase."

But Jeff Burton has two wins at Texas Motor Speedway, where Cup drivers will race Sunday. And doing well there again will help put to rest some of the problems he has endured this season.

"It's kind of been either really good or really bad for me," Jeff Burton said. "We haven't run as well over the last three or four months as we'd like to run, for sure. So as the year winds down, the intensity of wanting to have some good runs and running in the front just continues to build."

Still a factor

Drivers not eligible for the Chase are spoilers, and one to watch out for is Dale Earnhardt Jr.

He is in the midst of a 59-race winless streak dating to May 6, 2006, at Richmond, but this week he's at Texas, where he recorded his first Cup win on April 2, 2000.

Earnhardt has won at least one race in his first seven seasons on the Cup circuit, but he has only three races remaining to win in 2007.

"We've done so many good things this year as a team and I've been given the most consistently fast cars of my career and the only thing lacking is a victory," he said. "Texas is definitely a place where we can resolve that problem."

Earnhardt tested earlier this week at Atlanta, but it was for his new team, Hendrick Motorsports, for whom he will drive next season.

He compared it to a first day at school, trying to learn people's names and working with new people.

"I'm excited to see the expressions on their faces, their mannerisms, their attitude about the whole thing," Earnhardt said.

Pit stops

• Jeff Burton is the only driver to win more that once at Texas Motor Speedway, having done it in 1997 and 2007. Eleven of the 13 winners have started from a top 10 position. Matt Kenseth, the 2002 champion, started 31st and was the deepest in the field a winner has started.

• All 12 Chase drivers are mathematically eligible for the championship despite big advantages for leaders Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, who have the closest point margin (nine) between first and second since the Chase's inception in 2004.

• Bill Davis Trucking Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of an injury-causing accident and ensuing lawsuit against the Batesville, Ark.-based company. However, Bill Davis Trucking and Bill Davis Racing are separate entities, so the race team will not be affected by the announcement.

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