Now that I’ve covered the Best of the Rest, I’d like to take you through the seasons of the first four drivers eliminated from the Playoffs: Harrison Burton, Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex Jr.
Much like the first set, I’ll be giving a summary of their season, focusing on significant moments in each driver’s season before diving into why they fell short of a title and what lays ahead in 2025.
Without any further ado, let’s talk about one of the feel-good stories of last season.
Heading into his third full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series, 23-year-old Harrison Burton lacked the highlights that his contemporaries had since entering the sport’s highest level.
An accomplished, but brief Xfinity Series career appeared to set the stage for a triumphant return of the Burton family name to Sunday racing, but a trying first two seasons with the hallowed Wood Brothers Racing bore little fruit.
With a best career finish of third after a chaotic Indy road course event in 2022, the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Burton resolved to make this season his best yet.
The 2024 season failed to launch for Burton in Los Angeles, missing the main event after a poor qualifying session and missing a chance to exhibit his talents to his adoring fans.
Rather than to let that deter him, Burton’s hot lapping improved when he landed on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, earning a slot in the second round of qualifying where he eventually wound up 10th.
Harrison avoided a devastating pileup involving major contenders and cruised to a solid 12th-place starting spot for the 66th running of the Great American Race after ending the second Duel race in 5th.
Unfortunately for him and the Wood Brothers, the #21 car ended its day early, spinning off the impatient front fender of Brad Keselowski’s machine that triggered a greater melee that wrecked out several cars.
Just five laps into the event, the historic team lost its opportunity at its sixth Harley J. Earl Trophy.
Despite getting into an accident in the first five laps of the next race in Atlanta, Harrison wheeled his battered Motorcraft Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse to points in stage 2 before claiming a solid 11th-place run.
It was tough sledding from there for the #21 team. Races at Las Vegas and Phoenix went by without a hitch but also saw poor results. They would be an omen for the weeks ahead as Burton’s 27th-place effort in Arizona would be his second-best finish of the year through the first nine races.
A crash with Kaz Grala late in the race at Texas dropped Harrison to 28th in the final running order, disrupting a six-race streak where he wasn’t involved in any cautions.
Talladega set the stage for Burton to notch a strong finish. Points in stage 1 gave the young driver a chance to finish with double-digit points for the first time since February, and after dodging all of the accidents, Harrison maneuvered his Motorcraft Ford through the last-lap wreckage to collect his first top-10 of 2024.
Another five races went by with Burton scraping and clawing for top-25s, getting into accidents at Kansas and Charlotte. Harrison added a 25th-place finish to his resume after completing the Sonoma race even though he got into his sixth caution in the first 16 races.
A quality run in Iowa set the stage for an even greater performance in the rain race at Loudon, coming home an impressive 14th in an absolute deluge.
Then, Burton found himself in a supporting role in the Music City Melee. In the seemingly endless Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, the third-year racer threw a block on Carson Hocevar during a mid-race restart.
Hocevar took exception to the move, and once the caution flew, the rookie attempted to express his displeasure by popping into Burton’s bumper. The contact ended with the #21 car spun around on the backstretch and Hocevar receiving a stern post-race penalty.
Harrison kept marching on in spite of the contact until he was swept up in a big crash on the second Overtime restart, triggered in part by Hocevar getting loose on the exit of turn 2.
The streets of Chicago saw him earn stage points on the way to a 25th-place effort before getting collected in the mangled catastrophe caused by Corey Lajoie going into turn 1 at Pocono the following week.
NASCAR’s return to the Indianapolis oval for the Brickyard 400 ended early for the Wood Brothers entry as Ryan Preece and William Byron making contact put Burton in their path, his fourth DNF of the season.
A forgettable evening in Richmond was quickly forgotten about when Harrison rebounded in a big way in Ford’s territory, getting his fourth top-15 of 2024 in Michigan before heading to Daytona.
Through his previous five starts at the World Center of Racing, Burton only finished two of them while being involved in an accident in every single one of those starts, something relatively common for young and inexperienced racers at superspeedways.
Rolling off the grid 20th, Burton’s DEX Imaging Ford Mustang Dark Horse avoided a pileup that developed right in front of him in stage 2. Had he been a shade faster, he runs into the sliding John Hunter Nemechek; had he been a shade slower, Kyle Larson’s damaged Chevy clips his bumper and sends the #21 into the field.
Burton rode in the top-10 for a significant portion of stage 3 until a caution with nearly 20 laps to go brought the field onto pit road. The #21 pit crew put Burton back out on track in 21st for the final 16 laps.
With nine laps remaining, Michael McDowell threw a bad block on Austin Cindric for the lead into turn 1, sending McDowell’s #34 Ford taking flight, bouncing into the field like a beach ball at a music festival.
Because he was so far back in the field, Harrison was able to get on the binders and take no damage in the accident, allowing him to move up to the third row for the final two laps of the race. After an awkward push in the bottom groove led to three cars ahead of Burton wrecking out, he’d be on the front row for Overtime.
Harrison Burton was the second car of the 15 left on track that could keep pace. Sitting at the front of the outside line, the first lap of the restart saw the second-generation racer fail to build any momentum while Kyle Busch scooted away on the bottom.
When Busch blocked the outside line’s run coming to the white flag, the third car in line popped out to the top, disrupting the momentum of the top line. It seemed that Busch’s 19-year streak of winning races would be extended to 20.
Fortunately for the Wood Brothers team, Busch got too big of a lead.
Coming out of turn 2, the bottom line struggled to generate a run. With the help of Daniel Hemric (Chevy), Ty Gibbs (Toyota), and Parker Retzlaff (Chevy), Burton’s Ford rocketed ahead of Busch at the end of the backstretch, and he never looked back.
With his father in the NBC booth, Burton masterfully fended Busch’s final challenge on the front straight, taking the checkered flag to claim his first Cup victory and bringing Wood Brothers Racing their 100th win.
Oh, and they got a Playoff berth!
His 21st-place result at Darlington meant nothing when he was already locked into the postseason. At the opening Playoff race in Atlanta, Burton minded his Ps and Qs for much of the day, staying out of any messes created ahead of him.
Harrison missed out on stage points and quietly rode in the back half of the top-15 before he made contact with Austin Cindric and Noah Gragson, shooting Gragson’s Ford into the inside wall and introducing Overtime.
Burton’s promising day came to a bitter end at the last possible moment when Chase Elliott put Ross Chastain in the wall, setting off a multi-car collision that dropped the #21 from the top-15 to 31st.
While the young racer snagged stage points for the third road course in a row at Watkins Glen, a 24th-place finish didn’t help his hopes of advancing as the series moved to Bristol for its first elimination race.
Harrison lined up 34th for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race where mechanical issues impeded his progress, leading to a 35th-place result that led to his elimination from the Playoffs.
Chase Elliott started in the back of the field at Kansas the next week where contact with Burton on lap 1 set off an accident involving multiple cars, but Burton weathered the storm on his way to 23rd when the checkered flag ultimately fell.
A promising result got ripped away from him at Talladega when Burton plowed into the spinning Austin Cindric with just five laps to go, saddling the third-year racer with his sixth DNF of the year.
No drama occurred the following two weeks for Burton where he managed to score back-to-back top-20s at the Roval and Las Vegas before sinking back to 24th at Homestead. A blown engine at Martinsville relegated him to 36th place, ruining a sterling 6th-place qualifying effort.
In his final race with the Wood Brothers, Burton made it to the second round of qualifying for the second straight week and capitalized on the great starting spot to earn a 16th-place result to cap off of his tenure.
What Went Wrong
There might need to be a longer column to fully dive into why Harrison Burton’s Cup Series career went the way that it did.
In short, Ford started 2024 off behind its competition as the manufacturer changed their Cup Series body to the new Mustang Dark Horse. With Wood Brothers effectively being the fourth Penske car, that meant Burton received the worst resources in the building in a lot of cases.
As great of an organization as Team Penske is, the Wood Brothers relationship hasn’t provided strong results in the NextGen era for one reason or another.
Burton winning a race at Daytona to give the team their 100th win is as good as it was ever going to get. If he would’ve been able to double up two weeks later in Atlanta and followed that up with another win at Talladega, he could have made a bid at the Round of 8, but it was painfully unlikely.
In short, this team overachieved but were never a real title threat. They were dead-last in season points among full-time drivers going into Daytona, so the automatic bid to the postseason gave them a monetary boost that they’ll carry with them for the next three seasons while they groom Josh Berry into a Cup Series competitor.
Looking Ahead to 2025
It was announced in July that Stewart-Haas Racing driver Josh Berry would be assuming the role as driver of the #21 for 2025, leaving Burton without a Cup ride for 2025.
Though he managed to win a race, it didn’t appear to change Harrison’s market much, so he settled for dropping back down to the Xfinity Series for a full-time campaign with AM Racing.
AM Racing made headlines when they moved on from veteran Brett Moffitt after a solid 2023 season in favor of Hailie Deegan. Deegan’s 2024 campaign went about as poorly as it could’ve gone before her dismissal going into the Chicago race weekend in favor of a rotation of drivers for the remaining races.
This doesn’t seem like a great environment for a 24-year-old driver that is hungry to rehabilitate his image and return to Cup competition at some point, but there’s a long year ahead for Burton and AM Racing to turn around their fortunes.
(Top Photo Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo)
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