Chase Elliott: Harrison Burton took of NASCAR rules, ‘good for them’

When NASCAR first introduced the current win and advance championship format, it came with a provision that playoff eligibility was dependent on being top-30 in the standings.

For example, when Kyle Busch missed the first 11 races of 2015 but won a race, he first needed to crack the top-30, which he did en route to the championship.

That rule changed in 2022 in that any full-time team, or one with a waiver, that won a race is champion eligible regardless of championship standings position.

Harrison Burton was the first to capitalize on that change, winning the race at Daytona to make the playoffs from 34th in the standings.

Now Burton and the Wood Brothers No. 21 team will finish no worse than 16th in the standings.

This will probably be a talking point over the weekend at Darlington but Chase Elliott was asked about it first on Tuesday during a midweek media availability.

“Man, that’s tough,” Elliott said. “I probably have a lot of opinions on that stuff, but I totally let [NASCAR] make that call. As it pertains to last weekend, look — Harrison did a good job. I know all those guys really well from dad’s time racing with them from me being a kid and I was just super happy for them to win and to get their 100th win — I think it’s an incredible milestone. I just wanna say that. Really am happy for all parties involved. Jeff Burton’s a good friend of mine and I enjoy watching Harrison too. So, really just happy for them.

“Look, they don’t make the rules. NASCAR makes the rules, and this is the format they created. This is what you’re gonna get sometimes whenever the cards fall like they did on Saturday night. So, I think for any of us to question that is just unfair because this is the reality and that’s the format they rightfully took advantage of. Props to them.”

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