Jeb Burton Craves Success

BY JARED TURNER

By all measures, NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Jeb Burton is enjoying

the best season of his NASCAR career. Yet, the son of 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton – despite having what he calls “a dream opportunity” – is far from satisfied.

On top of earning Xfinity Series career victory No. 1 at Talladega Speedway in late April, Burton had spent the entire season situated no worse than seventh in the standings as of late August. Both are pretty notable accomplishments for a guy who prior to this year had never entered more than 14 of the 33 annual Xfinity Series races. But Burton’s highly competitive nature has him still craving further success.

“I wanted to have some more wins by now, and more top-fives, but it could have been a lot worse, too,” he said of his season. “We could have not won a race, and we could have crashed a lot. We’re kind of middle of the road right now. I definitely want more, though.”

In fact, Burton won’t be totally OK with anything less than getting back to Victory Lane and having an opportunity to compete for the championship in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway.

“I really want to win four or five times and make it to Phoenix,” Burton said. “That’s my goal. That was my goal going into this year, to kind of light it up and do that.”

While these might seem like rather lofty expectations coming from a driver running the entire Xfinity Series schedule for the first time, the second-generation wheelman from Halifax, Virginia, doesn’t see it this way.

With solid backing from the likes of longtime Burton family sponsor State Water Heaters (which remains a primary sponsor in 2021), Burton made at least one Xfinity Series start in seven of the last eight seasons before joining Kaulig Racing this year. While Burton never went to Victory Lane as a part-time Xfinity Series driver, he performed competitively enough to gain the personal confidence that he can be a champion of the sport’s No. 2 series.

“I ran the last two years for JR Motorsports, and I ran inside the top 10 almost every race, and I wasn’t racing much,” Burton said. “So, I knew if I was racing more, I was gonna be better.”

While Burton has been solid in his first full-time Xfinity Series role, he’s actually fallen short of his personal goals.

“I’ve kind of underperformed, to be honest, of what I was hoping to do,” the 29-year-old said. “We’ve still got time to get it together, but I feel like I’ve made a lot of mistakes and haven’t done the best job. I’m just trying to clean some of that stuff up, so I can get the results that I need.”

That may seem like a rather harsh selfassessment in light of his success this season, but Burton can’t help but set the bar high. After all, he still harbors aspirations of competing for a top team at the Cup Series level – where he’s made 33 starts but none with a team anywhere close to being capable of going to Victory Lane. He’s also challenged on a consistent basis by his father – a five-time Cup Series race winner who retired from the sport in 2007. The two discuss racing every day.

“Every time I see him, we’re talking about something,” Jeb Burton said. “Sometimes the conversations are not very fun. He’s going to critique everything I do, because he wants me to be the best. So, that’s just kind of the way it is.”

And kind of like Jeb Burton’s own take on his 2021 season.