'Mr. Burton,' McDowell chat after M'ville mends tension

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Michael McDowell certainly has no interest in making enemies on the track, particularly after his Sprint Cup debut. So when he found out Jeff Burton was upset with the 23-year-old rookie after Martinsville, McDowell immediately wanted to smooth things over.

Unfortunately, McDowell compounded his mistake by referring to Burton, who made his Cup debut when McDowell was 9, in formal tense.

"I tried to find Mr. Burton on Sunday," McDowell said. "Obviously, he was pretty upset. I wanted to talk to him and let him know from my perspective. I definitely wasn't trying to ruin his day at all. ... At that particular moment, when I was racing him hard, we were the Lucky Dog. Had the yellow come out with 15-20 [laps] to go there, we would have been on the lead lap."

One hard hit

Michael McDowell walked away from what some called the hardest hit they've seen on a racetrack during Friday's qualifying session at Texas.

• Complete story, click here
• Watch McDowell's crash

Burton appreciated McDowell's candor, if not his politeness (watch video).

"We had a great conversation," Burton said. "I didn't know whether to feel good about it or be mad about him calling me 'Mr. Burton.' I wanted to tell him, 'You don't have to call me Mr. Burton. It's making me feel real bad.'

"I should have called him Monday morning, rather than expressing my opinion after the race. I probably did that wrong. I think he understands now a little bit more about etiquette in a Cup race. I thought he made a mistake at the end of the race, but I thought he did a really good job Sunday."

McDowell said his mind was focused on trying to get back on the lead lap and not lose ground to other cars fighting for a guaranteed starting spot. But after his talk with Burton, he understood more about what he might have done differently at a track notoriously difficult for first-time drivers.

"I talked to Jeff about that, he understood," McDowell said. "Obviously, he was upset that I held him up and I should have probably given it to him a couple of laps earlier and shouldn't have raced him that hard. I definitely felt a lot better after talking to him.

"It's tough, because you go out there and run as hard as you can all day long. Everyone says you ride around for 400 laps and you race 100, but if that's what they were doing, I was mistaken because I was running 500 laps as hard as I ever did."

Burton said McDowell was receptive to the advice, which bodes well for a driver who hopes to be racing at this level for many years.

"Racing for the Lucky Dog is a difficult situation, and I respect the position that he was in," Burton said. "I understand that position. At the same time, it gave me an opportunity to explain to him that these are long races and when there is a race for the lead, you've got to go out of your way to make sure you're not in that." (Continued)