FORT WORTH, TEXAS (AP) - There is another NASCAR winner named Burton.
Jeb Burton, the 20-year-old son of 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward and nephew of current Sprint Cup driver Jeff, raced to his first NASCAR Truck Series victory Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway.
“I’ve been telling everybody once we get one, they’re going to start stacking up,” the young Burton said. “This is awesome. A lot of blood and tears to get here. It means a lot.”
He led the final 24 laps, holding off a hard-charging Ty Dillon.
When Burton took the checkered flag, his father, who was spotting him from high above the high-banked, 1 1/2-mile track, told his son to do the burnouts he had always wanted to do.
“I just wanted the laps to end,” Ward Burton said. “It’s the most special moment in motorsports I’ve ever experienced.”
Jeb Burton was fourth when the final caution flag came out because of Ross Chastain hitting the wall in the third turn. But the Turner Scott Motorsports team got Burton’s No. 4 Chevrolet off pit road in second place.
While he was in only his 12th career start, Burton already had three poles and four top-10 finishes in his six races this year.
“It’s a relief,” said Burton, the youngest driver to win a truck race at Texas.
With an average speed of 142.984 mph, Burton finished 0.139 seconds ahead of Dillon, also in the Chevrolet. Dillon called it a heartbreaker after leading three times for 76 laps.
“Great job on Jeb’s part. I didn’t have any help on the restart. He motored past me on backstretch,” Dillon said. “One more turn, one more straightaway, something. I almost had him at the line.”
The winning pass came on that first lap after the restart, on lap 144 of 167. Dillon kept trying to high side in the final laps and was pushing closer before running out of time.
German Quiroga, the rookie from Mexico City, finished third in a Toyota. It was his best finish in 13 career starts.
Points leader Matt Crafton finished fourth in his Toyota, ahead of Dillon teammate Brendan Gaughan, a four-time winner in Texas who led his first laps there in 10 years.
Gaughan led twice for 44 laps on the 11th anniversary of his first NASCAR Truck Series victory, a win at Texas in the 2002 spring race, the first of his four consecutive wins at the track.
When he passed Dillon on lap 79, it was the first time Gaughan led at Texas since the last of his wins there in the 2003 fall race. Within 20 laps, Gaughan built a 3.3-second lead over Dillon before a series of green-flag stops.
Once everybody had cycled through the pits, including a lap then led by Burton, Gaughan retook the lead on lap 110 and stayed there for 24 laps. But he then drifted high in the fourth turn and Dillon caught up with him _ and eventually passed him on lap 134.
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