Harrison Burton and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane team will close out the 2024 season with two-straight top-10 starts as Burton has secured the ninth starting spot for Sunday’s Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
That follows a sixth-place start last week at Martinsville Speedway. It’s Burton’s and the team’s third top-10 start of the season, the other coming at Talladega Superspeedway in October.
Like last week at Martinsville, Burton and the team had a strong practice session on Friday at Phoenix. Burton was 12th on the speed chart with a best lap at 131.637 miles per hour. That came on the fourth of 61 laps he ran in the session. Among drivers who ran 10 consecutive green-flag laps he was 14th fastest, averaging 129.962 mph from the 23rd to the 32nd laps he ran.
In qualifying on Saturday, he was fifth fastest in Group B with a lap at 134.645 mph. Then in the final round he was ninth fastest with a speed of 132.188 mph.
“It was a really good day,” Burton told reporters at the track. “Obviously you get in the top 10 and 12th in practice. The last two weeks have just been really good, and Vegas before that was really good for us.
“Homestead, we kind of missed it a little bit, but I just can’t express enough what it means for my race team to bring me fast cars even when I’m on my way out.
“It sucks because we know we can do it. We’ve done it the last two weeks, showing that we’re fast enough.
“Obviously a mechanical failure last weekend took us out, but this is a good enough team to be a winning Cup team, so it’s bittersweet and really sad to be leaving but really proud of the effort and how we keep fighting. It’s really special.”
Burton said he’s hoping for a strong run on Sunday in his final ride in the No. 21 Mustang Dark Horse.
“I think we are going to have a good race car,” he said. “We were a little bit tight, and I think that bodes well for long runs in the race.
“I want to run as good as I can, hopefully up front, and try to win this thing.”
Sunday’s 312-lap, 312-mile race is scheduled to get the green flag just after 1 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern) with NBC carrying the TV broadcast.
Stage breaks are planned for Laps 60 and 185.
WBR PR
