W
Ward Burton
Guest
Imagine your forearms knotting up from repetitive motion, sweat popping out on your brow and a tightness in your chest that comes with knowing time is running out and you've still got a long way to go.
Are you straining to get into the top-10 of a 500-mile Winston Cup race with 10 laps to go, or trying to catch the leaders in a CITGO BASS fishing tournament?
If you ask Jeff Burton or professional fisherman Marty Stone, there isn't much difference between the two.
"Here's what people don't understand about this sport," Burton said recently, while promoting the second annual CITGO Jeff Burton Celebrity Challenge. "And that's how intense it is."
Burton's made-for-TV event was an eye-opener for a number of people. It matched six NASCAR drivers with six professional BASS anglers for a one-hour show that will be telecast on ESPN2 during the CITGO Bassmaster Classic week, July 28-Aug. 3 in New Orleans.
"People think those guys go catch fish and they think about it the way they do it," Burton said, "you know, you get your cooler and your two rods and walk to your boat, taking your time."
Burton and Stone agreed the pressure and the exertion is about the same between their two sports.
"That's not how these guys do it," Burton said. "They fish, and they fish hard. And if they're not fishing they're going 80 miles an hour finding another place to fish. If the boat's stopped, their lures are in the water, essentially before the boat even stops.
"The goal is to put the lure in the water as much as you can because the more it's in the water the more of a chance you have to catch fish. That means you are throwing (the lure) constantly.
"Last year I fished for four hours and I was sore! To tell somebody you'd fish for four hours and be sore they'd never believe you, but that's how it is.
"This is work. They fish aggressively, they throw a lot -- it is a different experience than the way you fish at home"
Stone, a North Carolinian who in recent years has become a devout NASCAR fan despite being on the road more than 200 days a year, put the comparison in perspective with his description of a typical event.
"We put in at Memphis and I was riding down the Mississippi River for about three hours," Stone said. "Now, we're talking about riding down the mighty Mississippi running 72 mph on a bass boat, where there is no brake.
"Our whole deal is we're against the fish and we're against the clock. A typical tournament day you've got eight-and-a-half hours fishing. Well, I'm running three-and-a-half hours one way -- so now I'm down to an hour-and-a-half of fishing."
If that sounds like a final tire run in a Winston Cup race, that's about right.
"There is no room for mistakes," Stone said. "You're all wound up and you're running and running and running and you get there. A lot of times you're guilty of trying to catch that 20-pound limit in one cast. You can't do it.
"Then, you've got to switch gears completely. You've got to slow down to a crawl and make the proper presentation, detect the bite, set the hook and land the fish in the boat, put him in the live oil, take good care of him and after that hour-and-a-half is done, another part of your job is done.
"Then you got three-and-a-half hours back to the weigh-in, hoping you make it back in time, that you don't hit anything, or run out of gas. It never ends."
Which makes events such as Burton's Celebrity Challenge such a pleasure.
The tournament matched Burton and pro angler Kevin VanDam, the event's 2002 champions; against the driver/angler teams of Kurt Busch/Gerald Swindle, Greg Biffle/Jay Yelas, Jeff Green/Stone, Hank Parker Jr./Jimmy Mize and Carl Edwards/Shaw Grigsby.
The format paired drivers and anglers for on-the-lake bass fishing competition on Bay Lake and on-track exhibitions at the Richard Petty Driving Experience at Walt Disney World Speedway, formerly a site of Craftsman Truck Series events.
Burton served as a driving instructor when the anglers first arrived at the speedway, and even that experience caused the Winston Cup veteran to laugh heartily.
"They're going to do it how they want to do it," Burton said of his instructor's role. "It's like me fishing. They try to tell me how to do it and I don't listen very well. Competitive people don't make good listeners.
"These guys are the world's best fishermen and they've gotten like that because they're competitive and they know how to do their deal and that's how they'll drive these race cars."
But in the fishing tournament, the pairs competed for the crystal Jeff Burton Celebrity Challenge trophy. As well, the winning team has a $10,000 donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association made in their name on behalf of CITGO.
