By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Jeb Burton had one more chance to surpass his teammate and score his first Xfinity Series win Saturday at Richmond Raceway.
However, with just a little more in the tank, Justin Allgaier cruised to his third win of 2020 in the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 250 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Burton had to settle for second place.
But “settling” wasn’t the word of the day for the part-time JR Motorsports driver, who scored his best finish in his 40th career Xfinity race, coming home second to cap off a JRM 1-2.
“We were just missing a little something,” Burtons said. “I want to win for this group so bad. Being that close, man, I wish I could have stayed on the No. 7 [Allgaier’s] door. We could have ran side-by-side a little longer. Congrats to them but a good run for us today.”
It was just his second top-five finish of 2020 and the fifth of his series career.
His season in the No. 8 Chevrolet has been feast or famine, finishing seventh or better four times, as well as finishing 30th or worse three times.
“They’ve had a lot of bad luck both when I’m in the car and when I’m not,” he said. “We had some part failures but other than that, we’re right there in the hunt. We just have to keep our heads up. I told them today that yesterday is gone and today is a new day. They don’t give up and we almost got ourselves one today.”
Despite no victory, this result gave Burton a smile as he took advantage of one of his driving opportunities.
“Luckily, I get to go to Bristol next week, so I get to race a couple times in a week so that’ll be be great to have that momentum carry into Bristol,” he said.
Second-place finisher @JebBurtonRacing catches up with @MRNRadio on pit road post-race @RichmondRaceway. pic.twitter.com/9frOje4R2b
— JR Motorsports (@JRMotorsports) September 12, 2020