Harrison Burton looked every bit at home during his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut on Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The 18-year-old finished 10th in the ALSCO 300 but performed better than the statistics show. He started fifth, finished fourth in the first stage, eighth in the second stage and was running just outside of the top-five when he suffered a tire puncture and hit the wall with 39 laps to go.
There was a chance that he could have captured a top-five in his Joe Gibbs Racing debut and that was the key takeaway for the second-generation driver.
"We made a rally back to where we finished," he said. "Definitely an up-and-down day. It was a lot of fun, a crazy experience to come out and race these cars. I felt I was at home, which was good."
And he should feel at home at Bristol, having made two starts there in the Truck Series and three in the K&N Pro Series East over the past half-decade.
It was the perfect place for him to make his debut.
"That's the one good thing we had going for me, that I knew the race track," Burton said. "Which was good. I had never sat in an Xfinity car until yesterday so I had to learn quick and figure it out.
"Jumping from my Super Late Model, to my truck and the Xfinity car, that actually helps because you learn to be adaptive and figure things out."
With his result, Burton became the first rookie to make his debut at Bristol and earn a top-10 since Bobby Dotter in 1986.
Is Burton willing to grade his debut?
"I don't know, it's hard to grade right now," he said. "I need to go back and watch the video. I need to go back and see the things I could improve on. I did the best I could do. I prepared well."
Burton has seven more Xfinity Series races on his schedule in addition to his full-time Truck Series efforts: New Hampshire Speedway (July 20), Richmond International Raceway (September 20), Charlotte Motor Speedway (September 28), Dover International Speedway (October 5), Kansas Speedway (October 19), and Texas Motor Speedway (November 2).
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