300 at Daytona International Speedway. He was released late in the season. NASCAR Cup career 1994–1999 Burton moved up to the Winston Cup Series in 1994. He ran 26 of 31 races in the No. 31 Hardee's-sponsored Chevy for A.G. Dillard Motorsports, winning his first career pole at Charlotte Motor Speedway and finishing 35th in standings. He returned to the No. 31 ride in 1995 but he was released on August 20, one day after finishing 6th at Michigan. The next weekend at Bristol, he moved to the No. 22 Bill Davis Racing MBNA-sponsored Pontiac after 21 races, and he won the AC-Delco 400 at Rockingham toward the end of that season. Caterpillar became the new primary sponsor for the car in 1999, when he picked up a career high 9th-place points finish, with 6 top five finishes and 16 top ten finishes. He scored three second place finishes that season, at Las Vegas, Darlington and Rockingham, and on all three occasions brother Jeff won the race. 2000–2007 In the 2000 season, he won the Mall.com 400 at Darlington Raceway and had seventeen Top 10 finishes to finish 10th in the final points standings. Bill Davis Racing switched to Dodge in the next season, when he won the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and had ten Top 10 finishes to finish 14th in the final points standings. Burton had also led the most laps in that year's Daytona 500 but retired after 173 laps after having been involved in the Big One. In the 2002 Daytona 500, Burton drove among the lead cars and was among the lead pack late in the race. However, he took the lead because Sterling Marlin, who was in front of him at the time, climbed out of his car and tried to fix a damaged right-front fender during a red flag, drawing a penalty as repairs are prohibited during red flag conditions except for non-points paying races. As Marlin was sent to the back of the field at the restart, Burton inherited the lead and maintained it, holding off Elliott Sadler and Geoffrey Bodine for the win. He also won the New England 300 at New Hampshire but due to numerous mechanical failures, he fell to 25th in the point standings, but after his win in Loudon, however, 2002 would mark the first and only time in his career that he would