Harrison Burton will take over No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford starting from the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.
The current Xfinity driver will join his three other family members to make it to the top tier of NASCAR. His father Jeff’s career in the series span over two decades and won 21 races. His uncle Ward won five races and his cousin Jeb competed in 33 Cup Series races.
“For me, it’s humbling, it’s exciting,” said Burton as he looks to continue a family tradition. “How can you not be excited? I’ve worked for this my whole life. I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in my career. I’ve enjoyed some success in the Xfinity Series and I’ve really worked hard to get here and I’m just really proud of the fact I was able to get to a spot like the Wood Brothers with the alliance with Team Penske. Those two organizations together is such a strong combination and you add Ford Performance on top of that, it’s gonna be an exciting opportunity for me. The Next Gen car adds an element of unknown and some fun to it and I couldn’t have thought of a better group of people to make my first jump into Cup racing with and I’m just really, really excited to kind of live out my childhood dreams and go try and beat the best in the world.”
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Harrison currently drives the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won four races last season in the Xfinity Series and finished eighth in points. He made his Cup Series debut earlier this year at Talladega where he finished 20th.
“That’s really a cool part of this,” said Eddie Wood, co-owner of the team. “Obviously, we come from a racing family that goes back generations and the Burton family as well. Harrison has got a lot of people to pull from in his family. He’s got his dad, Jeff, and his uncle Ward raced. Jeff and Ward won a number of races and then there’s Jeb, his cousin, so the family part of it I think is really important because there’s more downs in this business than there are ups, and the ups are so good when you get them that it kind of weighs itself out that you forget about the bad, but it takes a strong family to get through life.
“As owners, I’ve worked on race cars, my brother and got kids that raced and our dad raced, so I know that side of it, but the driver side is really, really hard and drivers need a lot of support and I think the family, I know Jeff and Kim, all of those just a really strong bond and then you through in Ward and Jeb and just a whole group of people and I think it’s really gonna be good.”
Burton will take Matt DiBenedetto’s place who is out of a ride for the next season.