Myriad-handling issues coupled with a mid-race incident left Jeff Burton and the AT&T Racing team with a 40th-place finish during the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The result fell short of the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team’s expectations and left them with a sixth-place finish in the season championship point standings and a seat at this year’s banquet in New York City. Burton’s finish in the standings reflects one win, three top-five and six top-10 efforts in the final 10 races of the 2008 season.

After rolling off the grid 17th in the starting order for the 400-miler, Burton was quick to snag five positions during the opening 41 laps.

With an AT&T Chevy that was loose both entering and exiting the corners, crew chief Scott Miller summoned the veteran driver to pit road on lap 51 for a scheduled green-flag pit stop. The AT&T over-the-wall crew turned in a solid performance, netting Burton two spots on track when he returned to the racing surface.

Three caution periods plagued the next 100 circuits where Burton teetered between the 12th and 16th positions. An extremely ill-handling machine prevented the 21-time Cup Series winner from cracking the top 10 despite Miller’s two attempts during that time to remedy the ailing machine.

A single-car incident brought out the fourth caution flag of the day on lap 168 and, with only 20 green-flag laps run on the tires, both Miller and Burton initially decided to not pit and gain valuable track position. Both rescinded their decision when all the lead lap cars came to pit road for service for tires which, had they stayed out, would have left the 41-year-old driver a sitting duck on the restart.

Another round of adjustments were in order for the lap 171 pit stop and, when the field returned to green on lap 173, Burton was 22nd in the running order.

Four laps later, bad luck struck the No. 31 camp when the South Boston, Va., native was trying to make a pass. Burton drove underneath the No. 78 car exiting turn two and the two drivers made contact, sending Burton into the infield grass.

Three trips to pit road were made under yellow, in hopes of staying on the lead lap, where the team assessed the damaged and attempted to fix the tow.

Disappointingly, the front end was dragging on the surface, making it difficult for the 2008 Chase contender to drive the AT&T Chevy.

The veteran driver made the hard left turn on pit road on lap 186 under green and the team spent the next eight laps repairing the No. 31 machine so that Burton could finish the 267-lap feature.

He returned to action on lap 193 and spent the remaining 75 laps running a steady, yet cautious, pace. He was credited with a 40th-place finish.

Carl Edwards nursed his fuel tank to his ninth and final win of the season. RCR teammate Kevin Harvick, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon and fellow RCR stablemate Clint Bowyer rounded out the top-five finishers.

All three RCR drivers finished in the top six in the point standings, earning the Welcome, N.C.-based operation the fourth (Harvick), fifth (Bowyer) and sixth (Burton) positions.

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