Toyota Racing – Harrison Burton
NASCAR Xfinity Series Quotes
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (October 27, 2021) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Harrison Burton was made available to media via videoconference prior to the Martinsville race weekend today:
HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 DEX Imaging Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
How are you preparing for Martinsville?
“We are in a tough situation. We had a really great car at Kansas, contending for the win there and just ended up getting in a crash and it put us in a bad spot, so now we know that we have to win to get into the Championship 4, which we believe we are capable of. We’ve shown we are capable of it at Martinsville in particular. We won this race last year there. It’s just time to get after it – have at it. It’s going to be fun. These are the situations that – there’s no great comeback without a setback at first. I’ve got a great group of guys around me, great leadership. Jason Ratcliff has been in this situation before, having to win at Phoenix to have a chance for a championship and him and Christopher (Bell) got it done, so I don’t see why me and him can’t get it done either.”
Do you enter this race upset with how this round has gone or do you have to put emotions aside?
“A little bit. I’m a little bit frustrated. Kansas was frustrating in particular, because I like to be able to look back and be better with what I could have done differently to avoid that situation and it’s kind of a hard thing to say other than get by those guys faster. That’s the frustrating thing for me because without having something to work on and something that we could have done better in than exact moment to not have this happen is kind of frustrating, because you don’t know what you could have done and it’s kind of a racing deal, but that racing deal has kind of put us in a really bad spot now. Some of that is good. You use that for motivation. You use that for fuel throughout the week to prepare, to work out hard, all of that stuff and when the race comes, it’s just any other race. Everyone has the same goals every weekend – to win. You can’t go out and try to reinvent the wheel for our last chance here to getting in the Championship 4, but on the other hand we have to use that frustration and tune it into a positive way.”
Will you strategy be do what others don’t?
“I don’t know. It’s very situation dependent. If we are out there leading a bunch of laps, then we kind of have to make the decision and the guys in our similar spot like the 9 (Noah Gragson), the 19 (Brandon Jones), people like that will probably end up doing what we don’t do. It always comes down to where you are running. If you are in the top-three at Martinsville, it’s not crazy to think if the caution comes out that you could win from there or really top-five. A lot of things can happen there in a hurry, as we all know. That’s why I’m so happy that I’m not on the box. I don’t have to make those decisions. I will leave it to Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) and my engineer Dustin (Zacharyasz) to make those calls and from there I just drive the best that I can but knowing that strategy is important. I expect us to be really aggressive. I’ve haven’t really set down with Jason and asked him what he’s thinking about strategy-wise yet, but most of what I would expect would be – stage points for us don’t matter. What does winning a stage mean to us? Nothing really. It’s all about the last lap and doing what we need to do to position ourselves to win. That’s what we will do.”
Coming into Martinsville, does it give you confidence since you’ve won there before?
“It does. You can’t rest on that thought. That’s something I’ve learned over time. If you get lazy and complacent in this sport and think that we run fast here, we are just going to run fast anyway, you are going to be trouble in a hurry. It does give you confidence, but you can’t rest on that confidence. You have to be aggressive in your preparation. You have to be willing to try new things to get better, especially because the race that we won, it was the first race Xfinity was back in quite some time, and our team did an amazing job of getting right up to speed fast. I have experience at Martinsville, so that helps quite a bit. We were able to have a dominate car, but everyone else has got significantly better. Even if you look at the speed traces throughout that specific race, everyone got better. Everyone closed the gap to us throughout the race and closer to us, fast as we were. Especially looking at the 7 (Justin Allgaier) car. There’s progression in this sport that’s going on. There’s a lot of things like that that you have to keep up with and it’s hard when you are the guy that won the first race to not rest easy on that, but we can’t do that. We have to be aggressive and try and go win.”
How does being on a must win strategy effect your mindset going into Martinsville?
“I think it helps us positively. You look at the guys that run not for championship points, a lot of times they are able to jump stages. I was able to do that last year and won some races once we got eliminated. We were jumping pit road spots and we were really fast. You have to have the speed, but it helps. You have free track position built into every pit stop if you do it right or if the cards fall that way. You just have the freedom to do whatever is best for your team at the end of the race. It’s not do we sacrifice points right now to be better off later or this or that. There’s no hesitation. It’s what is going to get us the best finishing position, so that makes the job easier for Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) I think. For me, it makes it easier. If we play our cards right, we will have track position and keeping track position is a lot easier than getting it in my opinion. I think once we get up there, we will be really, really hard to beat. I know I’m really confident in my abilities especially at Martinsville. It’s going to be fun to watch I know that much. All of the varying strategies, and watching guys try to point their way in versus guys that could maybe bump someone out of the Playoffs because of their win. It’s going to be entertaining for the fans to watch, and it’s going to be fun for me as a driver to be put in that situation. I’m ready to go and try to execute on it and put this team where we belong.”
How much help is your dad in navigating everything in the Playoffs?
“Quite a bit. He’s pretty hands off now-a-days, but recently he’s been helping with making sure that my mindset is the right one and helping me along the way try to emotionally navigate this stuff. There’s a lot going on. You care dearly about racing and finishing well and winning a championship and all of that. It’s what you work a whole year for and a whole off season for. It’s all you look forward towards is winning a championship. When that’s on the line in a one-race scenario, you can get caught up in that too much really easy and end up making a mistake because you are too nervous, whatever that may be. I think he’s been helpful in that case, but as far as actual driving, he hasn’t said much which is normal now-a-days, but when I was 13, he was my driver coach. Now I’ve got so many people around me that he’s able to be dad, which is fun for both of us I think.”
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