Confirmed: Jeb Burton to drive No. 26 Sprint Cup car for BK Racing - MotorSportsTalk

Less than two weeks after he was released from his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series ride by ThorSport Racing, Jeb Burton confirmed to NBCSports.com Sunday afternoon that he has accepted an offer to drive the No. 26 Toyota Camry for BK Racing in the Sprint Cup Series.

An announcement will be made Monday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte, N.C.

“It’s really exciting for me and my family,” Burton said. “I didn’t even know if I was going to race and then for BK Racing to give me a call and give me an opportunity and to believe in me to further my career and get me to the top of the racing world, it’s a dream come true.

“I’ve wanted to be in Cup ever since I was a little kid. Now I have an opportunity to do it, set some goals to win Rookie of the Year, try to finish top-25 in points and go to Daytona (500) and make the field, have a good day and keep my nose clean throughout the season.”

Instead of entering his second season with ThorSport Racing, Burton was released from his Truck ride on Jan. 28 when an agreement could not be reached on a new sponsorship deal for this season.

MORE: Sponsorship woes leave Jeb Burton scrambling again for a NASCAR ride

“I lost my Truck ride, and the next day I got a call asking if I’d be willing to drive a Cup car,” Burton said. “It’s pretty neat. It just shows everything happens for a reason. One door closed and another one opened. I think where I fell on the racetrack and off the racetrack, BK Racing saw something in me and it’s a great opportunity.”

Burton has never raced a Sprint Cup car before, and while Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway begins later this week, he’s prepared for a quick learning curve.

The first Sprint Cup practice session Burton will participate is this Saturday.

“I’ve just got to get up on the wheel and make things happen,” Burton said. “I’m excited, I want to learn as much this year as I can. I’m being thrown right into it, so I hopefully go out and impress some people.”

Burton’s racing experience impressed BK Racing’s owners.

“Ron Devine and I discussed a short list of potential drivers for our No. 26 entry,” BK Racing co-owner Anthony Marlowe told NBCSports.com. “I made initial contact with Jeb with the help of friend James Buescher. Ron, as our majority owner, handled the deal.”With mentorship from JJ Yeley and and Daytona 500 Champion Ward Burton, we believe his learning curve will be reasonable. Fifty-five percent of the time, in major NASCAR series races, Jeb has finished in the top 10. He has finished an insane percentage (more than 92 percent) of his races running. He’s very talented, marketable, and committed to be loyal for years to come. We also believe the crew chief we have paired Jeb with, Patrick Donahue, is very talented.”

Everything has happened so quickly, but Burton says he’s ready for the next chapter of his racing career.

“You have to go in with the mindset knowing you have to have some goals,” he said. “Our goals right now are to make the (Daytona) 500, keep our nose clean and run our laps. If we can do that, we’ll have a successful Daytona trip, and that’s what we’re going down there to do. We’re going down there to make the race and do our job.

“My guys back at the shop are working their butts off right now so we can be really prepared. All through practices and in the new qualifying format and in the Duels, we have to stay out of trouble and miss those wrecks. We can’t be tearing up race cars and that’s our goal.”

Jeb Burton is the son of 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton and nephew of former driver and now NBC NASCAR analyst Jeff Burton.

Jeb Burton finished fifth in his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series rookie season in 2013 with Turner Scott Motorsports (including earning his first career win at Texas). A payment dispute with the sponsor forced the team to fold before the 2014 season.

Shortly thereafter, Burton was thrown a lifeline by ThorSport Racing to drive the No. 13 for the full season, eventually finishing eighth, only to be released once again due to a sponsorship issue.

“I had a great year in 2013, had a great team and felt in 2014 I was going to win the championship with that team – and then I lose that ride,” Burton said. “Mr. Thorson at ThorSport gives me a call to drive that truck and we get better for the rest of the year.

“This year, I’m thinking if we can get better and go run for the championship – and then lost that ride. Then I didn’t have anything and now I’m rebuilding with another team.

“Hopefully, I can have a home at BK Racing … (and) this can be something good for BK Racing and myself, get things like they ought to be and get to the next level.”

Burton would not reveal sponsors for the No. 26 Toyota, but USA Today’s Jeff Gluck is reporting that primary sponsors will be Dr. Pepper and the Maxim magazine’s fantasy sports app.

Burton, 22, has 49 career Truck Series starts with one win, seven top-five and 19 top-10 finishes, He also has two Xfinity Series starts with one top-10 finish.

“People have seen that I can drive, they believe in me and that means a lot to me,” Burton said. “Hopefully, I won’t disappoint them. We’re looking forward to this season, and I definitely think we’re going to turn some heads.”

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(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)

Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality

It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.

“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.

“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”

During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.

*Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)*

Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.

The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.

The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.

“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”

So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).

Starting with the Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).

“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”

Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.

James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”

Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.

*Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.

“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”

IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).

*The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.

“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”

“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”

Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.

“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.

“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”

*Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing but also its competitive fire.

“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving. It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.

“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”