Is Ward Burton back in Cup to stay?

The Morgan-McClure Motorsports #4 State Water Heaters Chevrolet Impala SS started 14th in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway and ended the day with an 18th place finish and a race car that was completely intact. Burton's qualifying lap on Friday posted the fastest time of all the drivers who had to qualify for the race on time. "It's like winning the pole for us," one of the crew members said of the 16.44 second lap. Ward Burton's day almost started with trauma as he got settled in the seat and could not be heard on the radio. This was remedied once a replacement radio was installed mere seconds before rolling off pit road. It was also a day of firsts for the Abingdon, VA based team – their pit crew had never pitted the Nextel Cup car in the 2007 season. Burton made the race in Las Vegas, but once he was hit by the # 7 car, he was out of the race and no pit stops took place. The crew got off to a bit of a shaky start, but as the day progressed, they were looking like the crew who has been practicing at the race shop for the last three months consistently busting off stops under 14 seconds. During one caution period, Team Manager Larry McClure said, "Ward , you look as good as anybody out there. Just keep doing what you're doing and we will be just fine." As the field took the checkered flag, being in the back paid off when many of the cars ahead of him collided into turn one. The State Water Heaters Chevy came home in one piece, virtually untouched, which is big at Bristol and important to a team that has only a few of the newly configured cars completed. The 18th place finish moved the #4 State Water Heaters Impala SS from 40th to 36th in owner points a mere 34 points away from having 34th or 35th as there is a tie for those two positions. After the race, Burton said "All the boys on the pit crew have been working really hard. Unfortunately, that is the first time they have been able to pit the car this year and every one of them is new. We've got to get a lot better on that. But we brought the car home in one piece and we really needed that to happen. We don't have a big inventory of cars; we're just trying to get caught up. At the end of the day, we had (a car in) one piece, a top-20 finish and not a bad points' day for us. Track position was everything and we could not keep track position. You're racing and right now a top-20 sounds pretty good but a top-10 sounds a whole lot better. The State Water Heaters people probably got a little publicity out of it so all in all where we are at, it was a wonderful day."