Harrison Burton shocks NASCAR world with win at Daytona, 100th victory for Wood Brothers Racing
What a race! Harrison Burton gets it done and wins the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway in overtime! He may have lost his job for 2025 but Harrison now has his first career win in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Despite losing his job, Harrison Burton has not given up. He doesn’t know where he is going next season. But wherever he goes, he will take a Cup Series win at Daytona with him.
Burton wins over Kyle Busch in overtime. Jeff Burton is in tears. This is an amazing night for the Burton family, one of the best in NASCAR.
Wood Brothers Racing now has 100 wins all time.
Say what you will about the win and in system. Be mad about the double standard between people cheering for Harrison Burton versus the outcry against Austin Dillon at Richmond. Burton did it clean, didn’t wreck anyone, was patient, and was rewarded for it in the end.
Shoutout to Kyle Busch as well. He has not won a race this season. He would like to win one to make the playoffs and keep his yearly win streak alive, pushing it to 20 years in a row. But he didn’t. Busch raced Burton straight up and crossed the line with another top-5 finish.
Daytona race gets ugly in Stage 2
This race was a solid Daytona race. You won’t hear anyone complaining about saving fuel and all of that this time around. There were enough wrecks and drama, both good and bad, to make this an enthralling race for fans watching at the track and at home.
The middle of Stage 2 had what might have been the biggest wreck of the race. Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and others were taken out in the wreck that seemed to include half the field or more.
That wreck would just be a foreshadowing of what was to come. The final stage would really get wild. But the Stage 2 wreck played a major role in how the rest of the race would play out.
Harrison Burton bides his time and makes the most of it
Credit to the field for all of the three-wide racing they put on today. There were moments when the field was saving fuel, but they didn’t let it get boring. Drivers were still vying for track position and trying to push their line ahead of the others while keeping their fuel consumption under control.
In the final stage of this race, we saw two cars get in the air, but only one completely flipped over. There were a number of wrecks to close out the race. Austin Cindric was at the heart of two of those incidents. One, he caused by pushing Michael McDowell and making him wreck in front of the field, almost flipping over.
That wreck did damage to Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, and other drivers in the process. It wasn’t long before Cindric was the one sideways and wrecking others. The 2 car got into Josh Berry and sent him flipping over onto his roof. Berry took a hard hit into the wall and spun like a top before coming to a stop. He gave a thumbs up after leaving the car and left the care center without issue.
As for Harrison Burton, every wreck brought him one step closer. It allowed him to move up a few more spots. Parker Retzlaff of all people gave Buron the push he need to get ahead of Busch and win this race.
With Kyle Busch beating down his back, Burton kept the wheel steady and delivered a perfect block. It would be exactly what he needed to hod off Rowdy and win his first career Cup Series race.