(born
October 25 ,
1961 ) is an American
NASCAR Auto Racer . Although he has been unemployed since 2004, he is frequently one of the first names mentioned when a car becomes available.
Ward graduated from
Hargrave Military Academy . He also attended
Elon College for 2.5 years.
Ward is the older brother of NASCAR driver (SoBo).
Ward began his NASCAR
Busch Series career in the 1990 season. He results slowly improved in his four years in the Busch Series. His final two seasons saw him finish eighth and sixth place in the final points standings. His final two seasons also saw him net his only four wins.
He moved up to
Winston Cup in 1994. He ran 26 of 31 races in the #31
Hardees Chevrolet for Alan Dillard, Jr.
He returned to the #31 ride in 1995. He moved to the #22
Bill Davis Racing MBNA Pontiac after 21 races where he became more successful. The new combination scored a fourth place finish in their second race. Ward won the
AC-Delco 400 at
Rockingham in the third last race of the season.
The next several years would show slow improvement from 33rd to 16th in the final points standings.
Caterpillar became the new primary sponsor for the car in
1999 . 1999 began the peak of Burton's career. He finished ninth in the final points standings with 16 Top 10 finishes in 34 races.
In
2000 he won the
Mall.com 400 at
Darlington Speedway and had 17 Top 10 finishes to finish 10th in the final points standings.
In
2001 he won the
Mountain Dew Southern 500 at
Darlington Speedway and had 10 Top 10 finishes to finish 14th in the final points standings.
In
2002 he began the season by winning the prestigous
Daytona 500 . He also won the
New England 300 at
Loudon, New Hampshire . The rest of his season didn't go as well, and he finished 25th in the final points standings.
2003 was a season of poorer finishes. He only had 4 Top 10 finishes, and he left Bill Davis Racing with five races left in the season to begin driving the #0
NetZero car for owner Gene Haas. He finished the season 21st in the final points standings.
In
2004 Burton raced the #0 car to 3 Top 10 finishes. He was released from the team with two races left in the season. He hasn't raced in NASCAR since. But Burton has shown that he wants to be back and may do a part time sechdule in 2006 and a fulltime in 2007. Burton will always be a great Driver.
1994-95 #31 Hardees Chevy
1996-98 #22 MBA Pontiac
1999 #22 Catapillar Pontiac
2000-03 #22 Catapillar Dodge
2004 #0 Netzero Chevy
- ''The Unauthorized NASCAR Fan Guide 1998-99'', by Bill Fleischman and Al Pearce (1999)
