JOHN  EDWARD  "WARD"  BURTON   -   10/25/1961

a retired American stock car racing driver.  He is the older brother of fellow NASCAR driver and NASCAR on NBC broadcaster Jeff Burton and the father of current Xfinity Series driver Jeb Burton.  Burton began his NASCAR Xfinity Series career in the 1990 season and competed full-time for four seasons.  In his first season, he had 23 starts with three Top-10 finishes, ending the season in 21st place.  His results improved steadily over the next three years.  For his second season, he had 29 starts with two Top-5 finishes and 10 Top-10 finishes, completing the season in 18th place.  Burton's third season in 1992 brought his first win on February 29 at Rockingham in the #26 Gwaltney car owned by Alan Dillard.  He completed the season in eighth place overall with 

one win, three Top-5 finishes and 10 Top-10 finishes.  His final full-time season in 1993 brought three more wins, nine Top-5 and 10 Top-10 finishes, ending up in sixth place in the final points standings.  In 1994 Dillard and Burton moved up to race in the Cup series with Burton at the controls of the#31 Hardees Chevy.  They ran 26 of the season's 31 races and had a best finish of second at Pocono.  Mid-way through the 1995 season Burton would be hired to drive for owner Bill Davis.  In their seventh start as a pair Burton would win at Rockingham driving the #22 

1991-1992 Xfinity car - Rockingham win

1994-1995 Cup car

MBNA America Pontiac.  He would start third; lead 87 laps; and beat Rusty Wallace by two seconds to get the win.  Caterpillar became the new primary sponsor for the car in 1999, when he picked up a 9th-place points finish.  In the 2000 season, he won the Mall.com 400 at Darlington Speedway and had seventeen Top 10 finishes to finish 10th in the final points standings.  Davis Racing switched to Dodge in the next season, when he won the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and had ten Top 10 finishes to finish 14th in the final points standings.  Burton had also led the most laps in that year's Daytona 500 but retired after 173 laps after been involved in the Big One.  In the 2002 Daytona 500, Burton drove  among the lead 

cars and was among the lead pack late in the race.  However, he took the lead because Sterling Marlin, who was in front of him at the time, climbed out of his car and tried to fix a damaged right-front fender during a red flag, drawing a penalty as repairs are prohibited during red flag conditions except for non-points paying races.  As Marlin was sent to the back of the field at the restart, Burton inherited the lead and maintained it, holding off Elliott Sadler and Geoffrey Bodine for the win.  He also won the New England 300 at New Hampshire but due to numerous mechanical failures, he fell to 25th in the point standings, but after his win in Loudon, however, 2002 would mark the first and only time in his career that he would win multiple 

Cup car 1995-1998 - Rockingham win 1995

1999-2003 Cup ride

races in a single season.  2003 was a season of poorer finishes for Burton.  He only had four Top 10's, and he left Bill Davis Racing with five races left in the season to begin driving the #0 NetZero-sponsored Pontiac for Haas CNC Racing.  He finished the season 21st in the final points standings.  In the 2004 season, Burton raced Haas CNC Racing's #0 NetZero HiSpeed-sponsored car to three Top 10 finishes, but was released from the team with two races left in the season.  He spent the next two seasons as a free agent. Various owners had wanted to hire Ward to drive their Xfinity series cars, or truck series vehicles, but Ward was stubborn, and stated that if he couldn't run in the Cup series 'he wouldn't race at all", so he sat on the sidelines for two years while new, younger drivers raced in the lower divisions, and worked their way into competitive Cup series rides.  "Out of sight, - out of mind" would be the phrase 

that proved to be Burton's undoing.  Many believe if Ward had accepted a lower division ride, he would of easily made his way back up to a top tier Cup series ride.  He returned to the Cup series late in the 2006 season, occasionally driving the #4 Lucas Oil Chevrolet for Morgan-McClure Motorsports.  In 2006 and 2007 Burton ran a total of 19 events for the underfunded Morgan-McClure team driving the #4 State Water Heaters Chevy, and only had a best finish of 14th Indianapolis).  He entered and attempted to qualify for every race in the 2007 season; but the under funded team just didn't have the horsepower to compete with the high dollar teams.  He made the field in 16 of the 35 races that season.  His final start came at Martinsville. He would start 36th but had issues in the race and finished 38th.  For his career, Ward made 375 Cup starts over 13 seasons.  He won five ties; including the crown jewel race of the Daytona 500 and Southern 500.  He had 24 top five 

2004 Cup

2007 final Cup season

finishes.  In the Xfinity Series he had 161 starts over 11 years.  He won on four occasions, and had 23 top fives.  also made one start in the Truck Series where he finished eighth at Daytona in 2012.  Some info from Wikipedia.

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