Harrison Burton, NASCAR driver

Growing up racing well talk a little bit about being four years old and driving around the driveway and what was it about you that I guess snared you for life the thing about racing is it's so hard and you have to love it to be in it and there's times when you feel like you've worked your butt off and you've tried everything you can try it doesn't quite work out and and you still have to go back to the racetrack and still work hard out of the next week and so I think I just fell in love with it at a really young age I think I watched my dad race and I always thought it was cool and when I was young I mean I wasn't you know determined to be the best racecar driver ever when I was four years old right I was I was learning and having fun with it and then the older I got the more serious I took it and the more work I put into it and my dad made me prove that I wanted to do it he worked he worked me hard and and taught me all kinds of things that I can use for the future and you know just those steps that it took I remember thinking that I had figured it out and I was gonna be you know a great race car driver and then I'd go to move up and it wouldn't work out that way and it was nothing like I thought it was and I had to kind of start back from scratch and learn everything new and I think just that mindset of loving the racetrack and loving racing and just enjoying what you do is is kind of biggest thing for me Relationship with his father rustle what did you see about him and his relationship with his dad that that has him here work today I think that you know you you make the most of your opportunities and he got an opportunity but his father made him work his butt off in order to accomplish whatever it was that he was gonna accomplish he was not gonna let him just sit around and say okay you get the car ready everybody I'm gonna jump in and I'll just turn left that's not the way he was brought up you know his father whenever he was a youngster built race cars from the ground up he knew exactly what those race cars would do from the time it they've unloaded and had a race track from the time he brought it back to the shop and from the wheels all the way through the roofline he knew everything that there was about those race cars he's tried to instill that same thing with Harrison in order to be successful you can't just jump in and just turn left you got to understand what the car is doing and I always thought Jeff was very very smart we're concerned what a race car could do what it couldn't do he would not try to extend it if he knew that the car didn't have it because he knew it here because he had built so many race cars he's made Harrison do the same thing I remember seeing this kid sweep the floors of their shop on their property did it many many times he made him work for it he was not just handed the keys to the car and say go ahead Jeff is a he's been tough on he's been extremely tough on him and but he's done it with a fatherly love and a will to want to see his son succeed but do it in the right way Harrison what do you think you got out of the way your dad made you work for this um I think that I got a sense of I belong I think you know it wasn't there's been great people like you know my dad gave my first shot and late models obviously and all that but I've had to go into business meetings and I was 13 years old and get sponsors with you know I've been linked up with decks imaging in a team since I was 13 years old and carried them to my first Xfinity start earlier this year so I think just that sense of working hard and feeling like you belong and proving yourself that you belong and winning at every level that you're at before you move up I feel like you have to master what you're at right so it's tough too it's tough to say right it's hard to go back in time and say well this is what this did exactly for me and I think I'm just a product of all those days put together I think and the crazy stories of my dad used to throw tennis balls at me while I was driving around so I wouldn't get distracted if I lost 1/10 when he threw a tennis ball I mean then that was bad right so just stuff like that that he did that that was fun just throwing balls at him to see if he would flinch yeah but he never did it yes now how old were you when this that's like in your tour Evan oh goodness yeah so my dad was mad at me because I would never he thought I was getting distracted right and and you're six years old driving race cars here probably distracted say he's I'm gonna teach you how to not be distracted just felt you in tennis balls all day and until you figured it out can you put Advice your finger on maybe one or two really good piece of advice your dad has given you that you think you'll carry with you through your own career yeah for sure I think the number one thing he said was be yourself you know in racing you'll go out and people are telling you to do this and this and that and if you know that that's not right for you or or you know that you know certain companies want you to do this but you don't want to do that or whatever maybe along the line just be yourself and that way you can lay your head down at night and say okay I'm happy with what I did today and then the second thing is just always put full effort into it and I think that's huge because on top of all this stuff is is really really important right but but the things that you get from it are really important and so I think if you put a hundred percent effort into it it'll give more back to you in a way of friendships that you'll make with guys at the race shop or whatever it may be and I've noticed that throughout my career as well Russell you mentioned Pride you've known Harrison since he was born what kind of pride do you feel seeing him become the the type of person and driver he's become it I guess from being around his parents for so long I mean I work for them for 13 1/2 years but I never felt like an employee they made me feel like a part of the family I mean I know I can call Jeff Burton any day of the week whether it's 12 o'clock at night or whether it's early in the morning doesn't matter and he's always the source of reason if anything is ever going wrong because he can think things through just like that and 99.9% of time he's generally right so to see who he was I could not have worked for a better race car driver or better person Jeff Burton I've always said that it was just it was that way and it was that way with his wife Kim and Harrison Harrison mother you know there there are times whenever a driver goes through a long dry spell and I was with him whenever he went through a long dry spell he you know he was winning races galore in the late nineties and in the early 2000s and finally 2001 the well went dry and I remember there were a lot of he started you know down himself I still drive a race car what's wrong and they just kept making changes this kind of thing but nothing really seemed to work and then he had a tough decision he drove he had driven for Roush Racing forever and had a lot of success and so the idea was I keep you up where I'm at or I'll try something new to try to better myself and so he made the switch over to Richard Childress Racing one of the toughest decisions he was just mentally just whipped because of should I or should I not go and he made a switch and I remember Richard Childers I remember we were meeting with him Richard Childress said Jeff it will be at least two years before we win a race so in August of 2004 he left and in 2006 September they wanted over so his his prediction what Richard did Richard's race team had just not been very what they needed someone to come in and be a leader and that's what Jeff was I see everything he instilled in that race team then he's instilled in this young man he just this is just a good kid and has never had a silver spoon in his mouth but he's taking advantage of whatever opportunities that he's had and does it make me proud absolutely I mean again he's I hope I love to see him win our race here