Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Jeb Burton is confident going into Martinsville, which is more than other drivers his age can say. After two top-five finishes last year at this track, why wouldn’t he? Maybe the fact he is heading into this year with a new organization and a new manufacturer for his new trucks?
With only one run with the team, Jeb Burton has every right to be nervous in a confident way perhaps because ThorSport Racing, his new organization, has run strongly there in the past.
The 21-year-old seems to already understand the balance between patience and aggressiveness at any short track.
“You just got to keep telling yourself that you can’t win on the first lap,” Burton commented in an interview last week with SpeedwayMedia.com. “You need to sit there and ride and when you’re handling good, that’s when you really need to ride. You just need to become a more mature driver and become more patient. It doesn’t matter what happens before the last pit stop as long as you’re in the top three after the last pit stop, you have a shot to win.”
This race could be a make it or break it for Jeb as the young driver doesn’t have a ride for the rest of the year. He says they’re working on it, and if he can keep clocking in the top ten’s like they did at Daytona, then he feels as if he should be in the top five in points.
“We just got to keep plugging away and trying to find more sponsors,” he commented.
After being surrounded by a father who raced through much of his childhood, he feels that gave him the passion to race growing up as well. No longer a rookie in one of NASCAR’s top series, he feels as if he can race better at certain tracks, knowing the adjustments he would need to make and such. Despite growing up in a racing family, he stills feels like his biggest drive and competition is himself rather than outside pressures.
Not being a rookie anymore, Jeb’s advice to young drivers and rookies?
“It’s tough,” he said. “Like it’s been said – I had a full-time deal put together and it was all ripped away and I thought I had a pretty good year last year so you just got to keep digging and work hard and never give up and good things will happen.”
