Toyota Racing – Harrison Burton
NASCAR Xfinity Series Quotes
ATLANTA (July 8, 2021) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Harrison Burton was made available to media prior to the Atlanta race weekend today:
HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 Offerpad “Awesome Different” Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
We hear you have a new paint scheme.
“Yeah, we do have a new paint scheme. It’s a pretty wild looking paint scheme. Pretty goofy pictures with me on the front of it. I guess it’s a great way for Offerpad some exposure and Atlanta is a big market for them, so it’s an important race for us to get them out front, but the hood of both mine and Denny (Hamlin) are pretty goofy looking and Offerpad tends to be pushing me in the direction out of my comfort zone and doing things that are less than normal, but it’s also creative and awesome and it really matches their style when you look at how they are selling houses and what they do is just completely different from what other people are doing – just like Denny and I’s racecars for this weekend. They are pretty wild, pretty different and it will be pretty funny. It will be pretty awesome to try to get my goofy looking face up there in Victory Lane.”
What is the face on the right-hand side? What is the expression?
“We had a little photo shoot day and filmed that commercial that Offerpad has been running with me and Denny (Hamlin) doing all of those goofy poses and stuff. It was a different kind of photo shoot than what NASCAR drivers normally do. Then after all of that video filming they had us go take pictures, so that’s what all of those were. It was recreating different old 80s kind of photographs that were on the internet. That one was – you looked like you just saw a ghost or something. So, I just opened my eyes as wide as I could and that’s what they ended up putting on the hood of my racecar.”
What did you see in the last part of the race at Road America?
“It was time to go for me and I guess Myatt (Snider) missed a corner some and kind of put himself in a vulnerable spot and I tried to fill a gap that quickly closed between those two guys (Snider and Tommy Joe Martins). I didn’t intend for them to spin out or wreck. I wasn’t really angry at anybody. I saw a gap and I went for it, and it closed pretty rapidly, but lucky for us, we did not have too substantial damage. We had some splitter damage from it, but nothing too crazy and we were able to keep going. That’s just racing. You look at the Xfinity Series on road courses, it’s ultra-aggressive. Guys are really doing anything that they can to get by other guys. It’s a big challenge – what is the level of aggression that you have to be at. Sometimes you are over-aggressive, and things happen, but if you are not over-aggressive, you are going to get run over by some guys. I didn’t have any frustrations that led to that. That was me just trying to go. It was time to go at the end of the race and went for a gap that closed.”
You are fifth in points, but you don’t have any wins – so has this been a good season or a not-so-good season?
“We’ve had the speed to win. We got some analytics back that we’ve been looking at and it’s almost frustrating, because our average running position has been better than last year. Our average lap time has been better than last year. Pretty much all of the analytics other than the win column have been better. Why is that? I don’t know. Racing is challenging sometimes in that way. The season is not over yet. We’ve got a lot of racing left and my team and I fully believe that we can win this championship and have a lot of confidence going into each and every weekend. I think the w’s will come. I feel like I say that a lot on these Zooms. We just have to stay the course. We’ve been doing that. I’ve made some mistakes being a little bit over aggressive at some times and I’ve wrecked more than I usually do. Just getting back to what I know and getting back to winning races the way that I win races and that’s by being methodical and putting myself in the best position possible. I think if start doing that, we will start winning more and more often.”
When trying to prepare for this week, do you look more at earlier this year or last summer?
“Probably more last summer. March really was pretty cold, gripped up. It was actually more normal. I only ran Atlanta last year in the hottest temperatures possible and I was talking to Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) earlier this week about how shocked I was this year about how gripped up the track was. He was like, ‘you’ve only ran Atlanta in the worst possible scenarios, when it’s summer and 90 degrees.’ This is a completely different racetrack now, when we go – it’s going to be hot. I look at Atlanta 1 and Atlanta 2 completely different, so most of my preparation will be from last year. There are obviously things that can carry over, but most of it will be from last year for sure.”
How have you studied and prepared for Atlanta’s surface?
“It is crazy. Atlanta is one of the toughest racetracks because there is so many different ways that you can get around Atlanta. There is the (Kevin) Harvick line. You can run up top in (turns) one and two. You can arc. You can run shallow. You can leave low and straight or let the car have its head. It’s crazy. Every single different approach you have to be ready to do, because the track is always changing. That’s the thing that is crazy about racing that it’s hard to explain to fans. It is a different racetrack, especially at an old surface – every time you go back. You look at (Las) Vegas 1 or Vegas 2 or Atlanta 1 or Atlanta 2. Or Pocono is a recent racetrack we went to – the bumps in the tunnel turn were getting tremendously worse, year in and year out and becoming more of a challenge. Atlanta the temperatures are so different. Vegas the temperatures are so different, and it just changes everything about these racetracks. That’s the toughest things to prepare for is what’s going to be fast, how do you have to manage the race when you don’t even know what kind of track you are going to race. You can have an idea, but until you get out there and race, you don’t know, especially without practice.”
Do you think your mile-and-a-half program gives you momentum going into this weekend and what is the biggest thing that you have to work on?
“I think so. I think that has been our strength in some cases and short tracks have kind of been our strength. Mile-and-a-halves and short tracks, I always feel more confident just because it’s something we do more and more. It’s something that a guy with limited experience like myself – I’ve been able to have more chances at it. Anytime that you can go to a place like Atlanta that I’ve ran well in Trucks, ran well in the Xfinity car. I feel like we are going to run well this weekend. It’s always a confidence booster and when you put it on the same kind of configuration that you’ve had some success on, that’s a good thing. The hardest thing to prepare for is how to maintain track position. When you go to Atlanta, you know that you are going to have to pit a lot. You know you are going to have to restart on maybe old tires once or twice, so how do you manage the restarts? How do you stay in front of guys that are behind you and have a run up at you and you’ve got old tires trying not to spin them? It’s a big challenge. The restarts at Atlanta I think are the biggest thing to prepare for and how maintain track position there – especially with the choose cone. The outside is so hard to get going. There’s a lot of rows that you can make up by choosing that outside, but it might turn around and bite you in the butt pretty quick. Every week there is a lot to prepare for, but Atlanta is definitely sometimes a little bit extra.”
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