Burton's future clearing up: 'I think I'll be a race car driver next year'

There‘s light at the end of the tunnel for impending free agent Harrison Burton, after last Saturday‘s dramatic victory at Daytona International Speedway launched him into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Burton won‘t return to the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford in 2025, but delivering the 100th win for the venerable racing team has stimulated interest in the 23-year-old driver from other quarters.

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Though Burton can‘t be specific at this point, he is optimistic about his future.

“I think I‘ll be a race car driver next year, so that‘s great,” Burton said Wednesday during a celebration of the victory at the Wood Brothers shop in Mooresville, North Carolina. “I don‘t know where exactly, or what series — I don‘t know. I think it‘s all fluid.

“I feel like (I‘m getting) close to where I feel good about a couple things. I feel like I‘m in a place now where the places I‘m going to go in the future want me and genuinely want me as a race car driver to go and help them try to win races.”

Burton passed Kyle Busch for the lead on the final lap at Daytona and won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 by 0.047 seconds. He has mixed feelings about watching the video of the final two overtime laps.

“Not a ton, honestly, mostly ‘cause I hate the way my voice sounds on my radio when I scream,” Burton said when asked how many times he had watched the replay. “I don‘t know why — it just bothers me …

“(Broadcaster) Leigh Diffey had a pretty awesome call of it. He‘s like setting up the Kyle Busch story, ‘He hasn‘t won since 2008,‘ and then it‘s like, ‘Here comes Harrison Burton out of nowhere.‘ That was cool.”

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In the booth with Diffey was Burton‘s father, serving as a race analyst for NBC Sports.

“I did like to listen a few times to see what my dad said, and he was pretty quiet up there, which is typical of my dad in the booth whenever I‘m racing,” Harrison Burton said. “He tries very hard to be unbiased.

“Then I see the video of him muting his mic and almost punching Leigh Diffey, fist-pumping.”