The Inside Lane | Episode 50: Harrison Burton

Intro well it is time for everyone to begin punching their tickets to nascar championship weekend right here at phoenix raceway and the first and foremost the first guys will be able to punch their tickets coming up this saturday at texas motor speedway in the nascar's fandy series and to join us on the inside lane he is the 2017 arca east series champion a 2012 usac quarter western world series champion and a four-time winner in the nascar xfinity series driver of the joe gibbs racing number 20 toyota camry from huntersville north carolina it's harrison burton thanks for joining me that was an intro i felt like you know like the ufc fighters bruce buffers up there yelling at him i was ready to go for that that was good well i appreciate that and i Happy 21st Birthday mean you might actually get intros like that since you know you've kind of been digging into the the mma world a little bit but we'll get to that in a moment because when you look at this round of eight it was magical for you last year two wins but you weren't in the playoffs but now you get to come to these tracks in the playoffs actually but most importantly happy 21st birthday man you turned 21 on saturday how's the big 2-1 been treating you so far well i don't really feel that different i uh i didn't do anything that fun or crazy for it i was racing on my 21st birthday uh at the roble so i was trying to get into this next round because like you said this is a awesome round for me statistically um and our team is is really excited now that we have a chance to kind of win and punch our ticket to phoenix and uh have a chance to race for a championship man it's exciting so um our whole team is fired up and and now we have a shot at it this year instead of the bittersweet we got eliminated but we still won the two races right now we can just go and try and get locked in as there is two wins last season in this round and Harrisons Dad then over at kansas and 11th place finish so not too bad he went back-to-back win to texas and martinsville but one of the most fun aspects about you of course your mom made headlines a lot last year she'd freak out in the pit box then of course your dad has to be slightly more composed jeff byrd the former nascar star now in the mvc booth and i'm just curious because i know that you and him it's still dad and son when you guys are together when you guys are at home but even at the racetrack because he's actually contractually obligated to be at your races nowadays or at least the second half of the season what is your interactions like with him when you're at the racetrack and he is mr analyst and you're mr race car driver hey man i'm he's like my toughest critic uh he's he's he's awesome he's awesome dad i love my dad and i i have a great relationship with him obviously uh him and my mom both but i always give him a really hard time because he uh he likes to try and like he does not want to talk about me or my cousin jeb as much as possible because he doesn't want to be biased you know and it's the right thing to do um but i give him a hard time like you gotta give me a little credit up there man actually uh last year texas i passed someone on the last lap to win and the first thing he said up in the booth was that he felt bad for the guy i passed i'm like come on man you gotta give me some props like that's brutal so um it's it's awesome it's fun because my dad was always so busy and i was busy as a kid racing and um you know we weren't we weren't really around each other a ton not that he was not at the house as much as possible and doing what he had to do to be the best dad he could be but his job was demanding right so um it was always you know he would make time as much as possible and and that was what he could do and now it's like man i see him every every day of the week almost and we go to the racetracks and he's there it's it's really cool so it's it's been fun and moving forward is next year he now How have you affected your Dad will have the opportunity to watch you race a legendary wood brothers machine that number 21 in the nascar cup series he's going to watch you do that and besides him asking you to mow the lawn on national television how do you think that you've affected him both professionally as even a driver and an analyst but also as a dac cause he's now watching you go through your childhood racing and now you're about to go to the top level nascar how have you affected him do you think i don't know that's a good question i i feel like that my dad was always i never thought about it like that because to me he was always the man and and he was always the toughest guy in the world and and every son feels that way about their dad right that and uh so i always felt like i just wanted to be like my dad and i looked up to him a lot and now you know getting to kind of do what he did not because he did it but because i love to do it um but we share a passion right and so it's exciting for me to kind of get to the same level that he got to and that i never really felt like i would get to um not because i didn't believe in myself but just because it's so hard and and it seems so far-fetched to say that you know want i'm gonna race in the cup series and uh it's coming true so that's that's really exciting and um i've never thought about it that way that's that's a good question because i i don't know i've always thought that he was always the one kind of changing me i don't know if i was the one changing him right Relationship with Ward Burton yeah i would ask him that question because i can definitely assure you that you probably have in many ways and this entire racing family is honestly ridiculous because you have your dad nascar star you have your uncle also nascar star ward burden and then you have to deal with your cousin jeb not just as a competitor but this year as a championship competitor so you know not everyone's close with their uncles or cousins extended family if you will but i mean you guys have this incredible ability to bond over what you guys do racing is your guys's life so i'm curious your relationship with ward maybe you've went on some crazy excursions with the bear grylls of north carolina if you will and then of course what's it like racing against jeb seeing him at the track as family and also as one of the guys you're racing for a championship against well it's crazy um and it's crazy because my dad and my uncle they grew up racing against each other and had to race each other at cup in the cup races and you know and xfinity races and at short tracks all over and and they kind of always had stories about oh it's tough to race ward or stop to race jeff here's why and they would laugh about it and now it's like gosh me and jen are doing the exact same thing you know last last weekend he was you know on the cut line uh to get out of the playoffs and i was on the other end of it and we're basically racing each other to end each other's seasons he's like gosh this is tough because you know i care for my cousin i want him to do well he wants me to do well but now only one of us could make it so uh that was a tough situation to be in uh but it is it is what it is this is racing and and it's a business and uh it's it's it's a strange feeling to like to race against him and and take stuff away from him that's what you're doing right it's easy when it's some other guy it's like oh yeah i'm gonna take that win from him and i don't care right but when it's your home family it's kind of something you think about a little more Away from the racetrack and is this something where you guys talk about the racetrack away from the racetrack when you're together just out and about or do you guys just speak about random family things do you ever take the racetrack away from the racetrack uh quite a bit yeah me and jeb talk a lot about racing uh away from the racetrack um mostly just the ins and outs of the sport right like what's going on with sponsorship situations what's going on with this what's going on with that you know how can we help each other and do what we need to do that's what we've been kind of bonding over recently because it's really challenging to navigate this sport as a career it's it's not very forgiving you can lose your job at any moment and so uh trying to just keep us both in the sport and trying to help each other out as much as possible has been good um and that's that's kind of the main things we talk about and then jeb likes to talk some trash to me about racing uh he likes to send me some text saying that he's going to crash me and all that but he never does it Favorite track chad with harrison burns here the driver for joe gibbs racing number 20 toyota camry and i'm going to be honest here because this is kind of weird of course we're going to a phoenix raceway for the expanding series championship but i saw on a website last year that was dated back in 2016 that phoenix raceway is one of your favorite tracks you haven't been there a ton in your career because the series that you've ran doesn't necessarily go there and the honest part of this is i can't find that website again this year i found it last year i can't find it again this year so i'm curious if that is still true because i know that iowa i think is now on the top of your list on some of your other websites and whatnot but if phoenix is still one of your favorite tracks i'm just curious as to why if that's still true it's definitely up there it's i always change my answers based off of where i ran well at most recently right so you're gonna try and find it and i'll say one thing and then i'll say another thing and it's all based off of if i won there recently or if i ran whether it was well there recently uh that's my new favorite right and so phoenix has always been awesome because of the racing uh the restarts are insane as a driver there's nothing crazier than you know that we cut to the dog leg after the first restart and you look to your right and there's like six guys like lined up on your outside and you're all going in the same corner like how do we there's no way we're gonna make this work and uh that's exhilarating that's fun and it's always somewhere that kind of pushes you to make moves that are dangerous because you know not not dangerous physically but dangerous to ending your race because it's so hard to pass um because of the you know the pj-1 has been applied around the top now um that you have to really drive it into the bottom of the corner and slide up in front of some guy barely not hit the wall i mean it's crazy so i love it i love racing there and uh yeah if i win then it'll be my new favorite Learning from lacrosse well sounds good it would be quite though quite the way to win especially if you're able to lock into that championship four and a little bit more about you because i know that you love hunting and whatnot and away from the track i mean the track is your home that's where you grew up but i want to go back onto first of all you're doing some mma fighting after your altercation earlier this year i i saw an interview that uh that the trd team decided to get you some trainers but i want to go even further back into high school because you played lacrosse and i don't see a lot of athletes change from either playing like lacrosse in high school to go do something else like lacrosse is pretty niche so i'm kind of curious is there anything that you can take from the world of lacrosse or playing or mental physical aspects and take that into the cockpit of a race car i think so you know team sports teach you a lot and i learned i went to an awesome school with awesome teachers and learned a lot at school but i feel like i learned a lot about myself a lot more about myself in racing and in lacrosse because of the situations that you find yourself in that you're like oh my gosh this is awful and how do i get through this and and you find a way to kind of get through it and you're like oh maybe i'm i'm tougher than i thought it was or maybe i'm you know able to do more than i thought i could and it builds your confidence right so i think that's the biggest thing is is understanding how hard you can push yourself understanding how a team works and and understanding you know as a athlete you are a part of a bigger picture and that's your crew chief and your spotter and your engineer and your you know your road crew guys and then the guys and having them all behind you and and all that stuff i think i learned a lot from playing lacrosse on on how to kind of work with a team um and then just being mean lacrosse is kind of a mean sport and so is racing so uh i guess that's something i could take too all right real quick before i let you go Rapid Fire got to do a segment i do with every single driver's call quick time got some rapid fire questions for you looking for some rapid fire answers in return you ready set quick time harrison let's do it all right we touched on this already but i want to know now your favorite track to race out regardless of the car regardless of the car my favorite track to race at is probably homestead all right why homestead ripping the lip up there on the wall that's it that's the whole reason it's so fun to go up there and just be that close to the wall but then now i'm thinking i'll change my answer to darlington because the same reason i don't know i'm all over the place on it i can't take whatever works Favorite Jeff Burton Paint Scheme and like i said hopefully phoenix is the number one here in a couple weeks and i'll talk to you again after the race and we'll we'll find out if that answers change or not how about your favorite jeff burton paint scheme my favorite jeff burton paint scheme was the purple prilosec uh lightning car he won at texas in it and i was seven i think and that was like the coolest thing in the world like my dad's car had lightning all over it he won the race and so that was my favorite as a kid growing up and now i'm kind of partial to it still just because of that that's awesome i Favorite Hunting Method know that's also a fan favorite too how about your favorite method of hunting so recently i haven't been able to go hunting enough i need to talk to jeb but i've been really trying to get into bow hunting uh i've been practicing i bought a bow recently and so um been been trying to get into that more and more it's really hard throughout the season but in the winter months i'm gonna try and do whatever i can to get into bow hunting and see what i can do yeah i Biggest Obstacle at Phoenix think i saw some instagram pictures of you starting out there that would be cool to see last one for you all right if you have a chance to race for a championship at phoenix raceway in the xfinity series at phoenix raceway what do you think will be the biggest obstacle to overcome that weekend the biggest obstacle is going to be executing on restarts so you know track position is everything the restarts are crazy what do you do when you go into turn one and you're three wide you know as a championship contender you have to lay it all on the line to win the race you have to win the race and so um man you got to be so aggressive that it's on the borderline and making a mistake and that's hard that's a high pressure situation where your whole season is on one race and so i think that's the biggest thing is executing throughout the restarts and getting out of there with a track position and then go take it to them all right harrison we will let you go off of that and hey hopefully you're able to lock into that championship for and we will see you here at phoenix raceway racing for a championship and maybe we'll just chat again on that big old stage afterwards on that saturday night sound good that sounds like a plan to me my brother i think it's going to be a awesome chance for us to get to to try and do that and if we can then we're going to go take it to him this is the inside lane on sports 360 az keep it to sports 360 az as we prepare for nascar championship weekend at phoenix raceway [Music]