MANCHESTER -- Jeff Burton, the winningest Sprint Cup driver at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, has seen better times in NASCAR's top-tier series.

Last year, Burton finished 20th in the Cup standings, his worst result in 16 fulltime seasons on the tour.

The thing is, he and his team had their No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet running well and picking off good results at the end of the year.

That's only made this season, a season that got off to a good start, tougher to take.

“It's a year where we've done very little right,” said Burton, who made a couple of promotional appearances in the state on Wednesday. “We've had mechanical failures in about 30 percent of races. Between not running the way we want to and having mechanical failures, it's been a miserable year.”

He's determined to turn things around.

Wednesday's visit started in Faneuil Hall in Boston and included stops in Manchester and then Portsmouth.

It was styled in campaign season on a campaign swing, complete with a red, white and blue-themed recreation vehicle, ESPN's Allen Bestwick introducing the ''candidate'' and rousing endorsements from Gov. John Lynch and Mayor Ted Gatsas outside Manchester's City Hall.

The story line was that Burton, who owns four wins at NHMS, is campaigning for a fifth.

Burton, who drives for Richard Childress Racing, sits 19th in points going into today's Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway and said he's surprised that he's not even further back in the standings, given the kind of year it's been.

With only four races remaining before the 12-driver Chase to the Sprint Cup begins in Chicago on Sept. 16 and then continues at NHMS on Sept. 23, Burton is one of the longest of long shots to make this year's Chase and he isn't targeting that slim possibility.

But in case anyone thinks a likely second straight season out of the Chase — after making it in four of the previous five years — is cooling Burton's drive to be the best in the sport, they can think again.

Burton turned 45 in late June and is pretty much disgusted with where he is in the standings.

That, he figures, is a good thing.

“I enjoy the journey, I enjoy the effort, I enjoy the fact that it's hard,” Burton said. “I wish it wasn't so damn hard — I wish it were harder for somebody else — but it is hard. That's part of being involved in it. If I'm not going to hate these days that we're in, but also still have a passion for getting out of (the hole), then I'm going to quit. But I'm just not there. I love what I do. I hate where we are, but I love the fact that we can go fight and try to get where we need to be.”

Theoretically, Burton could win two of the last four races and sneak into the second wild card spot in the Chase. But the way things have been going, he knows that is unlikely.

“The main focus for us is not points, not any of that stuff, it's just getting back to running well,” he said. “We did get that push in the last third of last year. We got to where we were running well again. ... I believe we will get there. But it's going to be hard.”

Burton finished fifth in the Daytona 500 to open the season and was sixth in the fourth race at Bristol, but he struggled on mile-and-a-half-long tracks in particular and those have been his only top ten results all year.

His best season in the standings was third in 2000 and the September race that year was Burton's most recent win at NHMS. He won four of the eight races — one a season — at NHMS from 1997 to 2000 when he and crew chief Frank Stoddard of North Haverhill and the rest of the team had things nailed at the track.

Burton thinks the battle for the second wild card in the Chase to the Sprint Cup Championship will likely come down to Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch.

Going into today's race, Kasey Kahne currently hold down the first wild card spot and Ryan Newman the second. The wild cards go to the drivers with the most wins who are highest in points as long as they are in the top 20.

Kahne, who won the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at NHMS last month, is the only wild card contender who at the moment has two wins. Newman, Kyle Busch, Gordon, Marcos Ambrose and Joey Logano each have a single win and would take a giant leap forward with another.

“I think both those guys can win another race,” said Burton of the No. 24 of Gordon and No. 18 of Busch. “Both of those guys are going to be fast. Both of those guys have shown the speed.”

The others, he said, have not been as consistent with their speed.

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Wayne Helliwell Jr. of Dover leads the American Canadian Tour standings with three races to go, starting at Circuit Riverside Speedway in St. Croix, Quebec, next Saturday. Helliwell won his series-leading third race last Sunday at Sanair.

Austin Theriault is second to Helliwell, defending tour champion Brian Hoar is third and Joey Polewarczyk of Hudson is fourth. Randy Potter of Groveton is seventh and Luke Hinkley of Claremont 10th.

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The two-day Classic and Custom Car Show at NHMS concludes today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Loudon. The Show previous was part of the track's Vintage Celebration in May.

Allen Lessels covers motor sports for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.