If you’re going to peak at 23 years old—and hopefully Harrison Burton hasn’t, but if he has—there are worse ways to do it than this:
Full context, for those who missed it:
- Harrison Burton entered the race effectively in last place in the NASCAR Cup Series standings. Wood Brothers has already hired his replacement for next year, meaning Burton’s probably going back to the Xfinity Series or Trucks. Climbing back into Cup racing will be hard.
- That’s Kyle Busch on Burton’s bumper at the end, a desperate man looking to keep his 20-year streak of winning at least one race alive.
- The man play-by-play commentator Leigh Diffey is yelling at is color commentator Jeff Burton, Harrison’s dad.
- Everybody likes Wood Brothers Racing, an historic team who just keeps sticking around.
- This was Wood Brothers Racing’s 100th all-time win.
Burton’s in the playoffs now. He gets another few weeks not only of racing in the Cup Series, but racing with all eyes on him. And even if it goes as expected—even if Burton’s eliminated in the first round and hits the free agent market this offseason—he’ll always have won a Cup Series race at Daytona.
Good for him.
Good for Wood Brothers Racing.
Good for the Burton family.
Other NASCAR:
- The race was full of big wrecks, and those wrecks came calling for both Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain. Heading into the Southern 500, Wallace is 21 points behind the playoff cut line, Chastain is 27 behind the cut line, Chris Buescher is the last driver in on points, and Ty Gibbs is 18 points ahead of Buescher (39 ahead of Wallace). The expectation would be that Gibbs makes the playoffs, especially because a surprise winner at Darlington is less likely than at Daytona. Buescher has a nice advantage, but it’s easier said than done. (Martin Truex Jr. is 58 points clear of Wallace, which means he can only fall out if there’s a new winner.)
- The race was full of big wrecks, and minutes after this one, where Michael McDowell mercifully did not flip over, this happened. Thank goodness Josh Berry’s ok. That’s the scariest wreck I think I’ve ever seen in the moment. It looked even scarier at the time than the one that almost killed Ryan Newman a few years ago, though mostly because it was so unusual. Stock cars are not supposed to collide head-on with walls while holding their drivers upside-down. They are also not supposed to spin like tops. NASCAR added some precautions to the cars after Corey LaJoie’s wreck on Monday. Maybe those made the difference in keeping McDowell right side up. They did not do the same for Josh Berry.
- In big pre-race news, Shane van Gisbergen will race full-time in the Cup Series next year. Trackhouse will field an additional car, bringing back the #88. Van Gisbergen might be the best driver in the world. And we all might find that out.
- This leaves Zane Smith, a big signing for Trackhouse a year ago, as the odd man out. Rather than loan him out again, the pair are parting ways. Smith might end up in one of the Front Row Motorsports seats.
- The Daniel Suárez car fire was nuts, but in happier Suárez news, NASCAR’s going to Mexico next year. Jordan Bianchi’s reported that the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series will run in Mexico City in June. It’ll be held at the same track as F1’s Mexican Grand Prix.
- I haven’t found the relevant recordings, but there are reports that Richard Childress told Kyle Busch’s spotter to tell RCR’s partner, Beard Motorsports, not to push Burton at the end, hanging him out to dry so Busch could win. Parker Retzlaff was driving the #62 car, and it’s unclear whether the command never got to him or whether he ignored it, but he did push the #21. Regardless, Childress’s recent villain streak continues.
- Denny Hamlin lost ten playoff points because Toyota accidentally destroyed his winning engine from Bristol before letting NASCAR inspect it. So that’s a bummer for him. Ten points might be a lot.
- Layne Riggs said he dislocated his shoulder celebrating his Truck Series win at Milwaukee yesterday. It was good of him to make the most of it. Evidently the Truck Series won’t run there next year. With IndyCar switching from NBC to FOX, the open-wheel series’s Milwaukee weekend is moving up a week, and NASCAR is getting bumped. Unless the blood is really bad between the parties over this, it sounds like Trucks will return the next time they can find a mutual date that works. But next year, no Milwaukee for the Trucks.
Update: Right before we published this, news came out that Austin Dillon’s final appeal was denied. He’ll have to win the Southern 500 to make the playoff field.
Haas and the Bailiffs
Back when Russia decided to invade Ukraine, Haas cut off its sponsorship with Uralkali, a Russian fertilizer company. The logic behind this was sound: Fuck those guys!
Unfortunately, the Swiss disagreed. In June, a Swiss tribunal—evidently the most powerful entity in Europe, which, I don’t know, I guess that’s fair—ruled that Haas had to pay Uralkali the remaining nine million dollars on the contract. What did Haas do? The same thing I imagine we would all do in such a situation. Haas said, “Ok,” then didn’t send Uralkali a cent.
Unfortunately, the Swiss are a powerful race, and as the real kings of Europe, on Thursday they allowed Uralkali to send bailiffs to Zandvoort to take inventory of the Haas assets on hand for the Dutch Grand Prix. Meanwhile, someone (I’m assuming it was the Swiss) informed Haas that their trucks wouldn’t be able to leave the Netherlands until they paid. So, Haas paid, and because it takes a few days for a nine-million-dollar Venmo to go through (especially with a war going on), Haas’s trucks didn’t cross the border until earlier today.
The nice thing about an F1 team’s trucks running late is that if they’re really far behind, they can just unload the cars and let them drive themselves to Italy.
More F1:
- Max Verstappen is slow now. This is fun. We don’t have much against Verstappen himself, but it takes a certain type of loser to be a Max Verstappen diehard. (Unless you’re Dutch, of course. The Dutch can and should love Max Verstappen.) Now, those dweebs are trying to complain about Verstappen’s car while simultaneously berating American truth-tellers who inform them Verstappen isn’t the best driver in the world. If he’s so good, why can he only win with the best car? Anyway, here’s Scott McLaughlin, a better driver than Verstappen, pointing out how Verstappen was loose on entry in the clip Verstappen weirdos are using to try to prove that the Red Bull car sucks now. Does the car suck? Probably not. It’s probably not the best anymore, but again—if Verstappen’s so good…
- Logan Sargeant wrecked out of practice, and you know? He keeps doing that. Out of a desire for better results, or possibly just to protect their equipment, Williams is reportedly considering making a change, with Red Bull backup Liam Lawson and current Alpine endurance racer Mick Schumacher the main reported options. At the least, it doesn’t sound like Sargeant’s going to get a ride next year. Tough one for America, but maybe good for our reputation to get Sargeant out of there.
- Speaking of next year, Alpine officially filled its second seat. Young Australian Jack Doohan will take over for Esteban Ocon. Elsewhere, Kimi Antonelli will get a practice session this weekend at Monza, with a lot of smoke around him being formally announced as Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 replacement.
Penske vs. Palou
Honestly, it’s probably Power vs. Palou at this stage.
Will Power won at Portland in what turned into a parade. There was tension, but he held Palou off the whole way, effectively leading from wire to wire. Palou did manage to finish second, keeping Power’s points gain to only 12 points and probably eliminating any chance of Colton Herta, Scott McLaughlin, or Josef Newgarden sneaking into the title picture over these last three races.
The remaining gap is 54 points heading into the ovals, meaning Power would need to make up 18 points per race to tie Palou. It’s definitely possible given Penske’s oval success, but what seems like the cosmic favorite is Power getting in position to do just this only to get wrecked by teammate Newgarden in the end. We’ve talked about this before. We will not stop talking about it.
