Though his future with Wood Brothers Racing remains unclear, Harrison Burton hasn’t gotten caught up in speculation regarding his NASCAR Cup Series ride.
The 22-year-old, who has piloted the No. 21 Ford Mustang the past two seasons, is simply amused by the rumor mill that continues to rumble about his future.
“A lot of the silly season stuff, for me, has been interesting for sure to hear about. I don’t know where rumors come from for a lot of those. I see it and get surprised sometimes,” Burton said. “I haven’t seen one that’s been right, because I don’t even know what’s going on for next year yet.”
The North Carolina native is winding down his sophomore season in the Cup Series. During that time, Burton has recorded one top-five and four top-10 finishes. His average finish this year has been 23.2.
While Burton’s limited experience in the Cup Series has earned him a certain amount of grace when it comes to results, his 30th-place rank in the standings has forced him into a must-win situation in regard to qualifying for the playoffs.
“Daytona is obviously one anyone can win. It’s always chaos,” Burton said, referring to the regular season finale at Daytona Int’l Speedway on Aug. 26. “I see it as a legit, feasible chance. If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t even show up. I feel like it’s part of what makes race car drivers tick.”
Though the sophomore has struggled to find the sweet spot with the Next Gen car since moving up from the Xfinity Series last year, there have been two races where he’s felt he had a “legit chance” to win.
Lucky for him, one of those situations took place at Daytona.
“This year’s Daytona 500, where we were leading with like 12 or 13 laps to go. I categorized that as a legit chance to win that race, and I kind of got ping-ponged out of the lead,” Burton recalled.
The other was at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway in May, where Burton hung with the lead pack and finished sixth after several drama-filled restarts during overtime.
As the next race at Darlington will signal the first round of the playoffs, Burton believes his best chance to make it into the round of 16 will be at Daytona.
It would be the first time Wood Brothers Racing had an entry in the playoffs since Matt DiBenedetto secured a berth for the team in 2020.
Burton finished 27th in the standings last year.
His first opportunity to win his way into the playoffs will come this weekend at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l, during Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen. Burton finished 28th in last year’s running, but has a top-five result at the 2.454-mile road course in the Xfinity Series.
“Yeah, last year wasn’t very good in the Cup car. For me, it’s just experience, right?” Burton said.
After learning many lessons during his 21st-place run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last Sunday, Burton is entertaining optimism regarding Watkins Glen.
“Last weekend was not necessarily what we wanted for the road course, but we did learn a lot,” Burton said. “I’m excited to get to Watkins Glen to try and tap into and test our theories on the race track, which is always kind of the fun of racing, right? You go, have all these theories in the shop, have all these meetings, and you take a setup to go with and then hope for the best, right?
“So, it’s a bit of that ‘try it and find out,’ and I enjoy that, for sure.”