To say that Harrison Burton’s win in Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 Sugar was a surprise would be the understatement of the season.
Entering the weekend, the 23-year-old NASCAR driver had never won a race in 97 career starts in the Cup Series for Wood Brothers Racing, which hadn’t reached Victory Lane since 2017 with former champion Ryan Blaney.
None of that mattered to Burton, who essentially predicted his first career win just one week earlier after a promising showing at Michigan.
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Harrison Burton calls his shot ahead of Daytona win
In the aftermath of Saturday’s win, Burton seemed as shocked as anyone after he picked up win No. 100 for the racing team that “fired” him earlier in the year.
But in the post-race press conference, he told reporters about a moment last week at Michigan with fellow NASCAR drivers Austin Cindric and Todd Gilliland – all of whom joined the Cup Series in 2022 and have remained close friends since.
According to Burton, the three of them agreed that “the winner of Daytona is sitting right here.” And, sure enough, they were right.
The winner realistically could have been any of those three drivers, too, which makes the pre-race prediction all the more prescient.
While Cindric ended up in 15th, he led 15 laps and finished fourth in Stage 4 while running near the front of the pack for much of the race.
That was also the case for Gilliland, who led five laps and was in the top six to close both stages before settling for a 23rd-place finish amid all the chaos at Daytona.
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After the race, both drivers seemingly confirmed Burton’s account on social media. Gilliand replied to a post mentioning the prediction with “W” minutes before Cindric added his own reply of “Facts.”
Can Burton ride momentum from Daytona win?
As shocking as Burton’s win truly was on Saturday, it’d be even more surprising if he avoids an early exit in the NASCAR playoffs.
Burton will be among the 16 drivers competing for a championship starting with the Sept. 8 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Two weeks later, the Round of 16 will conclude at Bristol Motor Speedway, where his dad Jeff Burton raced for the final time in 2014.
Even if the younger Burton doesn’t advance beyond that point, he’ll still keep racing for another few weeks until the championship race on Nov. 10 at Phoenix Raceway.
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