NASCAR takeaways: Harrison Burton pulls off epic upset at Daytona to make playoffs

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Harrison Burton, who potentially had just 12 races left in his NASCAR Cup Series career, pulled off an epic upset Saturday night as he captured the victory at Daytona International Speedway to vault from 34th in the standings into the 2024 playoffs.

Having known for months that he would not return to the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 car following this year, Burton avoided the major wrecks that took out several contenders, got a push from Parker Retzlaff at the right time and then threw a block on Kyle Busch on the final lap for the victory.

Burton doesn't know where he will race next year but knows that he will have a Cup win on his resume and earned the 100th victory for Wood Brothers Racing, which has been racing in NASCAR going back to 1950.

"I cried for the whole cool-down lap," Burton said. "It's just been the hardest three years of my life.  There's no denying.  It's just been rough and these guys have rallied behind me when it matters the most."

The win threw the NASCAR Cup Series playoff field into chaos as the two-time Cup champion Busch remains among those in a must-win situation going into the regular-season finale next Sunday at Darington Raceway.

Busch finished second with Christopher Bell third, Cody Ware fourth and Ty Gibbs fifth.

Burton Huge Upset

Burton had only one top-5 and five top-10s in the first 97 Cup races of his career. So it wasn't like he had a lot of experience racing for the win in Cup before going into the overtime restart on the front row.

"I've been really fortunate and won a lot of races when I was younger," Burton said. "You just have to rely on the film you've watched, rely on the situations you've been in."

The 23-year-old son of former Cup driver and current NBC analyst Jeff Burton said he is cherishing the opportunity he has to race in Cup despite the struggles.

"You never know when you have a chance to drive again," Burton said. "I've had a chance to do that for three years, to work with these guys [at the Wood Brothers] for three years. ... When the chips are down, we did a good job."

Berry, McDowell Get Airborne

In two wild accidents in the waning laps, Josh Berry slid several hundred feet on his roof and slammed hard into an inside wall. That crash came a handful of laps after Michael McDowell got turned from contact with Austin Cindric and his car got perpendicular to the ground before coming back down on his wheels.

Both drivers were uninjured.

Berry slid in an area that was paved last year after Ryan Preece's wild flip. 

"Unfortunately, I just got turned around," Berry said. "The car lifted up and slid on its roof.

"The paving job did its job compared to what we saw last year. ... it was just a weird angle [into the wall]. I think the car crushed pretty good because it was upside-down. The car did its job. I feel OK. Just disappointed because I really thought I could win that thing."

Both drivers indicated it is just the nature of the style of racing at Daytona, where NASCAR must limit the horsepower generated to keep the car from getting airborne without contact, so the cars race in a big pack with little time to react.

"It was going over," McDowell said. "I had my eyes closed, but whoever hit me it felt like it set me back down because I had that moment where it got real light and it got real quiet and then I got hit and then I was back on the ground. ... It's the end of a Daytona race and these things happen.

"Everybody is pushing hard and we had guys up there that had to win, so you know everybody is going to go for it."

Playoff picture shakeup

With Burton snagging one of the 16 playoff spots, there are just three spots now available (and possibly just one if Austin Dillon wins a penalty appeal Monday and there is a new winner at Darlington) to winless drivers.

Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher are above the current cutoff ahead of Bubby Wallace with Truex up by 58 points, Gibbs by 39 and Buescher by 21. Wallace is 21 points behind Buescher and Ross Chastain is 27 points back.

Everyone else without a win, including Busch, face a must-win situation at Darlington.

Busch settled for second, and while it was devastating to lose, he seemed philosophical over it.

"Once they got in front, with as little energy as there was with the lack of cars that there were, it was hard to make anything happen from Turn 4 to start-finish," Busch said. "Besides just flat-out wrecking him, there was nothing else I could do. … It's all good. We were really, really, really lucky [to miss wrecks]."

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.