NASCAR News: Harrison Burton scores first Cup win at Daytona

Harrison Burton roared to his first career victory in Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race, claiming a historic 100th win for the Wood Brothers Racing team in overtime at Daytona International Speedway.

Burton led only the last of the 164 laps in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, bypassing Kyle Busch just a half-lap from the finish. The first win of his Cup Series career clinched a Hail Mary berth in the 16-driver playoff field.

Busch drove home second, with his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet just 0.047 seconds back at the checkered flag. Christopher Bell placed third, with Cody Ware fourth and Ty Gibbs completing the top five.

A sizable Stage 2 crash involved the top three in the Cup Series standings, dropping a handful of drivers from contention. Chase Elliott, teammate William Byron and three-time Daytona winner Denny Hamlin were among those involved after Noah Gragson and Corey LaJoie collided on the backstretch, setting off a fracas that eventually counted 17 cars among the victims.

A pair of Ford drivers divided the stage wins, with Josh Berry clinching Stage 1 and Joey Logano holding on for a Stage 2 victory. Logano led the most laps (34) and pole-starter Michael McDowell led the second-most (26), but both were sidelined in another pileup in Turn 1 with nine laps remaining in regulation.

Berry’s day ended in a late-race dash when No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford went upside-down in a backstretch calamity with two laps to go in regulation. Berry emerged unhurt in that tangle, which forced a red flag and sent the race into overtime.

The Typical Daytona Wreckfest

Scary crash at Daytona for Josh Berry, who went head first into the wall while upside down. It sounds like he is ok. pic.twitter.com/DbucMdhh0f

— John Shifflett (@John_Shifflett) August 25, 2024

The “big one” part two happened in Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

With nine to go at Daytona, Austin Cindric got into race leader Michael McDowell, who went airborne and slammed into the hood of Joey Logano. 14 cars total were involved in the wreck, including some heavy hitters such as Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick.

OH MY GOODNESS.

MICHAEL MCDOWELL SPINS AND THERE’S A HUGE CRASH. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/lJ2TvbM3Ln

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 25, 2024

The Cup Series’ next race is next Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) at Darlington Raceway. The event is the regular-season finale, and the 16-driver postseason field will be settled after the 500-mile Labor Day classic.

Quotes

Harrison, welcome to the Playoffs. For you personally, what does this mean?

HARRISON BURTON: I don’t know. I cried the whole victory lap. Obviously got fired from this job. I wanted to do everything for the Wood Brothers that I could. They’ve given me an amazing opportunity in life. To get them 100 on my way out is amazing. We’re in the Playoffs now. Let’s go to Darlington and see what happens.

I want to talk to you about this team who could have easily given up once the ride changed, Josh Berry was getting in this car. They never gave up on you. What was the point of how they were able to rally around you?

HARRISON BURTON: It’s amazing. It’s been the hardest three years of my life, obviously the hardest three years for some of these guys’ lives. To win the way we just did, beat the best in the business, Kyle Busch, across the line, it’s pretty fantastic.

I made a bet with Jeremy, my crew chief, that if we won, we’re staying here and driving home. We’ll be at a bar somewhere. Come find us (laughter). We’re going to celebrate this one.

Who are we going to have to calm down more, mom or dad?

HARRISON BURTON: My mom. My dad was pretty calm on the radio. My fiancée and mom are just crying. All of those people have been with me in the worst days of my life, best days. Good to get DEX Imaging to Victory Lane and get them another best day.

Kyle, you did everything right tonight. How do you square this one?

KYLE BUSCH: Just finished second. It’s all good. We were really, really, really lucky tonight to miss a few of them crashes.

All good. Just real proud of everybody, Randall, all the guys at RCR, ECR did a great job, brought a fast car. Was hoping we could get those three No. 8 specials on Monday, get some chicken tenders rolling, but wasn’t meant to be.

We’ll take this. Got a good little stretch going with these last three weeks, and hope we can do what we need to do next week.

What could you have done different on the final lap?

KYLE BUSCH: I haven’t seen any of it. Just from what I recall, we got off of two, somehow the bottom lane got discombobulated, broke all of our momentum, the top lane just rolled.

Once they got in front, with as little as energy as there was with the lack of cars that there were, it was hard to make anything happen from turn four to start/finish. Besides just flat-out wrecking him, there was nothing else I could do.

Can you win the Southern 500 next week?

KYLE BUSCH: Yeah, I mean, we want to. We ran good there the first time I ran with these guys early last year. But early this year, we struggled mightily. We’ll just have to go with hopefully a really good package that works, get our job done.

2024 Coke Zero 400 Race Results