Harrison Burton Wins First NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Championship

Harrison Burton wins his first NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship at Dover

Burton won the National Fallen Firefighters 125 presented by Carl Deputy & Sons Builders and erased an eight-point deficit to capture his first K&N Pro Series East championship.

“What an honor to win both the race and championship at Dover, it’s pretty freaking cool,” Burton said. “It’s what I dreamed to do as a kid, win races at tracks like this and win NASCAR championships. To come out and do that is pretty surreal. I’m pretty pumped up about it.”

Burton was eight points behind Todd Gilliland in the K&N Pro Series East standings before the race at Dover. Gilliland ran into trouble when he blew a tire on lap 56. He dropped out of contention and cleared the way for Burton to take the championship. Burton still had to finish the race and collect enough points to pass Gilliland for the K&N Pro Series East title.

Harrison Burton is the youngest driver to win a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship

“This race kind of caps it all off for this team,” Burton said after the race. “A bunch of guys who never quit and I’m glad I fit into that system where people that put everything we got into what we’re doing. Now that it’s all come to fruition and we got to bring home two trophies, it’s a big relief and we’re going to go have fun now.”

Burton won his fifth race of the season. NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series driver Joey Logano was the youngest driver to win a K&N Pro Series East championship at 17 years, 3 months, 28 days in 2007. Burton ended up with 593 points, eight points ahead of Gilliland in the final K&N Pro Series East standings. Burton joined his dad, Jeff Burton, as a NASCAR race winner at Dover International Speedway. Jeff Burton won the Cup Series race at Dover in 2006.

Harrison Burton won five NASCAR K&N Pro Series East races including the season finale at Dover

“This one is really disappointing,” said Gilliland who leads the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West championship standings with two races to go. “I felt like we had pretty good control of it going in here. We were just as fast as Burton in the race. Just having a tire go down like that is heartbreaking for sure. I’m really proud of everyone at Bill McAnally Racing. We’ve had the fastest cars here all year, just didn’t have the luck to go along with it.”

Garcia, who led a race-high 71 laps, dropped to 10th place. Chase Purdy won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year in the K&N Pro Series East despite a last-place finish in the race at Dover.