By Jerry Jordan, Editor
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It’s been a long road for Harrison Burton, one that has him traveling away from the iconic Wood Brothers Racing team at the end of the 2024 NASCAR season but that was just extra fuel to fight harder for a win. And that’s exactly what happened Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway when he stalked Kyle Busch and then passed him on the final lap to take the checkered flag.
“Obviously, there’s split-second decisions you have to make that are not scripted, but I could come up with my game script of I want to do this to Kyle to slow him down if we’re side by side going into turn one, or if he clears me, I need to get back to Christopher to pull him apart from Kyle so he doesn’t have forward momentum and we don’t get three rows back. I was able to work through that,” Burton said. “It just made the last lap slow down. Until off of turn four, I was like, Holy shit, I’m leading. It worked, that’s cool. Then I had to make a few big blocks. Sorry for cussing. I had to make a few big blocks. At that point, you have to do it, or you’re not going to win.”
Burton scored his first-ever Cup Series victory in 98 starts. The Wood Brothers have been chasing the team’s 100th victory since Ryan Blaney went to Victory Lane for them at Pocono Raceway in 2017 and Burton brought it to them.
The win didn’t come easy as Burton, starting on the outside in the final overtime restart, lagged behind Busch. But as the momentum built, and drivers began aligning with each other to get a push in the final 2.5 miles, Burton took a shot from the front bumper of Parker Retzlaff’s No. 62 Chevrolet and surged ahead off Busch, who couldn’t get lined up with his former teammate, Christopher Bell.
The only shot Busch had to get back around Burton was to try and move him, which at over 200 mph on a superspeedway, is a dangerous maneuver. Busch had a lot on the line, he needs a win to move into the playoffs and to keep up his record of getting a victory in every season for the past 19 years.
“You’re wide open doing everything you can and relying on what’s happening behind you,” Busch said, after the race. “Unfortunately, the 20 (Bell), something happened off (Turn) 2 and he got squirreled up and wasn’t to my rear bumper and then he was below the yellow line, I don’t know what was going on but it completely killed the bottom lane and the outside just rolled. Once we got to Turn 4 there just wasn’t enough energy with enough cars behind me and I was relying on my own draft to try to pass the 21 (Burton). That happened so slow that Ray Charles could have blocked that, so besides wrecking him there was nothing I could do.”
When questioned further about the option to move Burton, considering his need for the win, Busch said that would have been the wrong way to win.
“No. There’s a right way and a wrong way, I certainly could have made it work for me doing it the wrong way but we got what we got,” he said.
Obviously, Burton, who once drove for Busch’s truck series team, was appreciative of the consideration and the respect from Busch on the track, especially since wrecking someone for a win has been a fairly common occurrence this year.
“I mean, for a guy like Kyle Busch, who has been through what he’s been through this year, kind of similar story where his expectations were higher than where their year has been, this was a chance for them to turn that around the way we did tonight, too,” Burton said. “He could have very easily wrecked me. I wasn’t in his shoes but I was pretty sideways.
“I mean, for me, it means a lot. Kyle, I think has done a lot for a lot of young kids’ careers. So yeah, for him to race me the right way when I’m the guy that is low in points, if he wrecked me I don’t think people would really look twice about it, right? It’s just the way these races have gotten. He did things the right way. I think that means a lot for him as a person. It’s cool for sure.”
The gesture also didn’t go unnoticed by Eddie Wood, co-owner of the Wood Brothers team. He said he sits by Busch’s dad, Tom Busch, every Tuesday at Millbridge Speedway where they both watch their grandkids race. Wood said he had something to tell his friend this week at the track.
“Every Tuesday night at Millbridge, the go-kart track, I sit with Tom Busch. He’s the only guy that’s got a blanket to sit on. You don’t get dirty. I sit with him every Tuesday night,” Wood said. “When I see him this coming Tuesday, I want to tell him how proud I am of Kyle, the way he raced Harrison. That’s the way you’re supposed to do it and they did it.”
Although he is departing Wood Brothers Racing at the end of the season, Burton’s name and photo will forever hang in the race shop as the driver who got the team its 100th victory and put the Wood Brothers in the NASCAR playoffs.
