By Jeff Owens
SportsLine Senior Writer

For the first time in his career, Jeff Burton is on top of the NASCAR world, leading a series that has been dominated in recent years by his young rival Jeff Gordon.

For most drivers, that would be cause for celebration, even if it is just 10 races into a 34-race season. Not for Burton.

Though still a relative newcomer to success at NASCAR's highest level, Burton has a way of keeping things in perspective. It is a maturity that belies his age (31) and his five years of Winston Cup experience.

"WE'RE REALLY NOT ALL that wound up about leading the points," says Burton, who holds a 55-point lead over Dale Jarrett and, more important, a 200-point advantage on Gordon.

"Leading the points has gained some attention for us, but other than that, it doesn't get you anything right now. It's all about leading at the end of the year. Our goal going into this year was to go into the last race with a chance to win the championship. That's what we asked for and, so far, we've put ourselves in that position. But that could go away really quick if we're not careful."

Especially with 24 races to go and Gordon well within striking distance. Gordon won his third Winston Cup championship by a staggering 364 points last year, and already has three victories this season. Only bad luck has left him playing catch-up in the points race.

After second- and third-place finishes the past two years, Burton's Roush Racing teammate Mark Martin was expected to be Gordon's biggest challenger. But he has fallen out of three races while Burton has been a model of consistency.

After winning twice and finishing fifth in points last season, Burton has been strong from the start this year. Since an accident left him 35th in the season-opening Daytona 500, he has finished no worse than 11th.

HE HAS TWO VICTORIES -- at Las Vegas and Darlington -- and has scored seven top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 10 races. His 529 laps led is second only to Rusty Wallace.

Coupled with Gordon's inconsistencies -- two wrecks and a blown engine -- he is in the driver's seat in the championship standings.

Is he surprised? Not hardly.

"I'm not saying I thought we'd lead the points, but we felt like we have a really good race team," Burton said. "We've been in contention for the top five in points for two years in a row and we thought during the last third of last year that we were as strong as anybody with the exception of (Gordon).

"At times we were as strong as they were or stronger, but we didn't capitalize on some of the things that we needed to capitalize on."

Burton attributes his fast start to his strong finish last year. In four of the final six races, he was either leading or running second only to slip at the end. Still, he finished in the top five in 10 of the last 13, including the final three.

Jeff Gordon, right, edges Jeff Burton at the California 500, reaffirming Burton's hesitation to celebrate.(AP)

"WE LOOKED AT THAT AND knew we could run up front," he says. "We felt if we could prepare the cars, if I could keep it out of trouble and if we could be as competitive as we were at the end of last year, then we could come out of the gate strong, and we've been able to do that."

But Burton knows he must continue to keep things in perspective. His teammates spent the latest off week dissecting its race cars and focusing on making them better. They know that Gordon, who won 13 races a year ago, is lurking behind them, and that just being good will not be enough.

"We looked at what we've done so far and what we need to do to improve, because we know we do need to improve if we're gonna have a chance to win the championship," Burton says. "We know we've got to be even better than we've been."