Q. I noticed before the race you were stretching quite a bit. I mean, physically how was it to race in this cold weather?

JEFF BURTON: This was great for us. I’m sure it’s miserable for the fans, but for us this is one of the easier Martinsville races that I’ve had in a long time. I think this is one of the most physical races we go to. I mean, today is pretty… pretty not easy, but easier compared to what Martinsville normally is. I’m just stretching cause I’m old. The older you get, the more you got to stretch.

Q. I guarantee you that the I’m going to get mail and comments from fans and from readers over the fact that near the end of the race there were two lap cars that impeded the progress, seemingly irrationally, of trying to catch up with a driver who was in the same brand they are. Do you think that is plausible that McDowell and then Kyle Busch had in mind who the leader was and who he drove?

JEFF BURTON: I thought Kyle got out of the way. I thought Kyle actually hung a left on the front straight away and moved out of the way. He never impeded me, and I was second most of the time. So I never felt like Kyle impeded me. The 00 did. Why he did that, you know, you got to ask him that. I can’t answer that.

JEFF GORDON: But he did it all day long from Lap 1 to Lap 500.

JEFF BURTON: At least he’s consistent.

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, he’s consistent with it. I think that’s going to be a rookie trying to learn patience and understand; you know, when and who you race that hard. I mean you got to race for position, but, you know, when guys are racing for the lead, I mean, that’s kind of crazy, especially on restarts.

JEFF BURTON: No one expects anybody just to move out of the way all day long. But there is a time when you do move out of the way, and there is a time that it’s okay to move out of the way. And, you know, he didn’t do that.

Q. You had, obviously, very good runs this year. Are you surprised that you guys have run as well as you have? And is there any one thing that you guys are doing better now than you were at the end of last?

JEFF BURTON: Every team works hard to be better. We have worked hard. Richard Childress Racing has looked at all the departments trying to be better. You know, to be honest, I don’t think we’re running as well right now as we did this point last year. Last year we were really fast, led more maps, then we kind of fell off. We got where we weren’t as competitive toward the end of the year. But we’ve been, you know, either way, my assessment is we’ve run anywhere from third to tenth. You know, that’s been kind of it. We haven’t really been the best car anywhere, but we’ve been in the top ten everywhere. So we’ve got to be better. We know that everybody’s going to step it up. If we continue to run the way we’re running come July, that will be running 20th. So we’ve got to find a way to be better. I don’t know how we’re going to do that, but we’re continuing to work, and, you know but we have a lot of room to grow. I mean we’ve been we haven’t had, you know, knock on wood, we haven’t had a catastrophic day that a lot of people have had. Certainly that has a lot to do with where we are in the points. But we have to we’ve got to find a little more speed. Again, I don’t think we’re quite as good at this point this year compared to last year. But this is the best we’ve run here in a long time so I’m glad of that.

Q. What challenges did the cold weather today and the wet, of course, have as far as keeping your cars set up to run as fast as you did compared to the other guys, when you set them up originally for 75 degree weather to qualify?

JEFF BURTON: We all knew—I mean, you watch the weather, and we all knew it was going to be pretty cool today. Like Jeff said, it was slick at the end. I mean, there wasn’t much grip. You know, certainly it was raining harder than I realized it was raining. So I don’t know, I thought the speed of the cars didn’t fall off as much today as they did here last year on runs. More people could run well. Mean, I don’t know how many cars we had on the lead lap but had to be a bunch. You know, when it’s cool, it’s cool for everybody. When it’s hot, it’s hot for everybody. So I don’t think it has as big an impact as people think it does.

Q. Going into Turn 2 with 55 laps to go, the nose of your car, you slid and you lost ground, and Denny got away from you a little bit. What happened there? Or was it just one of them driver errors?

JEFF BURTON: I don’t mess up. You know that. Hell, I don’t remember. I believe the I don’t remember what happened, but I’m sure it was my fault, and I was driving it, and I got in too deep I’m sure. But, you know, just trying to make ground up. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. I just realized, if I was really a Carolina fan, I would have blamed the refs. (Laughing.) Could have blamed it on NASCAR, because it couldn’t be my fault.