NASCAR Xfinity driver Harrison Burton is getting a shot in Cup at Talladega race

Harrison Burton is set to achieve two early career milestones in the same weekend at Talladega. After the 20-year-old NASCAR driver makes his 50th start in the Xfinity Series, Burton is slated to race the following day in the Cup Series for the first time.

Gaunt Brothers Racing announced Thursday that Burton will drive the No. 96 Toyota in his debut in NASCAR’s top series on April 25. He competes full-time in the Xfinity Series for Joe Gibbs Racing as the driver of the No. 20 Toyota.

Burton is a North Carolina native from Huntersville whose NASCAR roots run deep as the son of former Cup driver Jeff Burton. He scored four wins last season in his first year racing full-time for JGR to earn Rookie of the Year honors in the Xfinity Series, and is battling his cousin Jeb Burton for top finishes in the series this year.

Harrison has two top-fives in the first seven races of the 2021 season and is coming off a seventh-place finish last weekend at Martinsville. His last finish at Talladega Superspeedway was 23rd.

“From the moment I started racing, the Cup Series was always the goal,” Harrison said in a team release. “In everything I’ve done, I’ve been working toward this moment. I saw how hard my dad worked to get to Cup and how hard he worked to compete and win races.

“He instilled that same work ethic in me and I’m just really proud and honored to have the chance to do what he did and compete with the best of the best.”

Jeff’s entry into the Cup Series was in 1993 after five years of racing in the lower-level Busch Series and while still competing full-time in that series. He raced a single event for the now-defunct FILMAR Racing team, finishing 37th at Loudon, before embarking on a 20-year career of full-time Cup racing in which he’d earn 21 wins.

His son will now have a shot in a race in NASCAR’s biggest league. In addition to Xfinity, Harrison has previously competed and won races in other pipeline series, including Super Late Models, the K&N Pro Series and the ARCA Menards Series.

Primary sponsorship for the race will come from DEX Imaging, a printer and scanner dealer, that has been a longtime partner of the driver.

“Our partnership with Harrison goes back to when he was 13 years old racing Late Models, and DEX Imaging has grown right along with him,” DEX Imaging CEO Dan Doyle Jr. said in a team release. “We’ve been a part of a lot of ‘firsts’ with Harrison, from his first Super Late Model start to his first K&N start, first ARCA start, first Truck Series start, first Xfinity Series start and, now, first Cup Series start.

“We’ve enjoyed a lot of success together and look forward to this next chapter with him.”

Gaunt Brothers Racing president Marty Gaunt expressed pride that Harrison would make his first Cup start with the single-car operation.

“As a Toyota team, we’ve seen firsthand how well Harrison has developed,” Gaunt said in a team release. “He’s been racing and winning in Toyotas for years, and yet he’s still only 20 years old. He has a very bright future ahead of him and we aim to make his Cup Series debut a successful one.”

Trackhouse Racing driver Daniel Suárez ran a full-time Cup schedule for GBR last season, but the Mooresville-based team has scaled back its number of event entries this year. Ty Dillon raced the No. 96 at the Daytona road course and Bristol dirt race events, and finished 19th and 26th, respectively, after failing to qualify for the Daytona 500.