Harrison Burton opened his first full-time season in style, collecting a career-best runner-up finish in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Daytona International Speedway.
Burton was patient throughout the race, coming back from damage and rocketing to the front of the field on the last restart to ultimately cross the finish line in second on Saturday afternoon.
“We had a good day. We fought back from a lot of adversity. We got damage. My team did a good job repairing it. We kind of still couldn’t poke through the hole like we needed too, but the 66 (Timmy Hill) got lined up behind me. Noah (Gragson) got out front about a car and a half and I thought ‘He might be in trouble here’, but then the caution came out. Just really proud of our guys. We had a tough day. I think that there were a couple times in the race that we were down and out, and our guys clawed it out. I was proud of that effort.”
-HARRISON BURTON
Toyota driver Timmy Hill (third) also logged a career-best finish with a third-place result, while Brandon Jones finished fourth after running in the top five consistently all day.
“I think we had the car to win this race this afternoon,” said Jones. “It was really about positioning yourself – it always is when it comes to a track like this. We had a great company day. Harrison (Burton) was up inside the top five with us, as well. He did a really good job as well. I wish I could have finished out that little bit at the end there to see what it would have ended up like.”
-BRANDON JONES
The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads next to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on February 22.