By: Mitchell Breuer

After a disappointing season in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Trucks Series, Harrison Burton has done a solid job of redeeming himself in his rookie campaign in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Unlike last year, he is in the playoffs and has two wins coming at Auto Club Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Burton compared this seasonto his days racing in late models, where he has felt like every weekend, he and his No. 20 team have a chance to win with the fast cars they are bringing to the track every weekend and, he does not believe that will change in the playoffs. However, despite these strengths, Burton also noted that there have been disappointments thisyearas well.

“What I do think about our season so far is that, we have won races and run well but, we have fallen short on a couple of our goals as well,” Burton said Tuesday. “We wanted four regular season wins, that was something we wrote on paper that we wanted as a team going into the playoffs. Hopefully we can make up for that in the playoffs and win a bunch of them in there.”

While he may not have all the wins, it does not mean the performance has not been there, as the No. 20 has finished inside the top-five in half of the races ran,this season, tying himself for the third-most in the series.

With this in mind, Burton doesbelieves thethat is team is capable of surprising many and winning the championship. In fact, he has taken the mindset of not looking at this as his rookie season instead believing he can still be a contender despite lacking experience.

“I don’t tend to think about it as the ‘first playoffs’, the way I want to think about it is that it is the playoffs in general,” Burton said. “For me, I want to get to Pheonix with a chance at the championship. I really think we are capable as a race team. If you get there, and you come up short, you did your job there. It’s a tough format to win in, and I think it brings out the best in people and is really fun to watch but if you have put yourself in positions to win, whether that’s single races or a championship, you can lay your head down at night pretty happy with how the season went.”

Entering the playoffs, the 19-year-old will be the seventh seed with 14 playoff points.