It may be called Dash 4 Cash, but for some Xfinity Series drivers, it’s more of a Playoff 4 Cash of sorts.
Every Xfinity driver who qualifies for each of the four Dash events wants to win the $100,000 per race prize.
And they’ll do what they have to do to get that six-figure check.
“Yeah, it does incentivize that,” Xfinity driver Harrison Burton said in a Thursday media teleconference. “You saw in years past guys were really aggressive to win the Dash 4 Cash. It puts on great racing.
“It reminds me a lot of the old Cup races that were worth a million dollars to win. That always seemed like it put more pressure on everything. It was a playoff-like atmosphere. That’s good, a good little test for us. The guys that are in the Dash 4 Cash, along with us, are guys that you are going to have to beat to win a championship.”
The Dash 4 Cash begins Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It will be followed by races at Homestead-Miami Speedway (June 14), Talladega Superspeedway (June 20) and Pocono Raceway (June 28).
“This is almost like a playoff race,” Burton said. “The incentive for me is more competitive than it is monetary. There is obviously a lot of things that you can do with that money with putting it back into the team, with your crew members, and things with charities and things like that, which are all things that I’ve thought about.”
But, Burton added, “the biggest thing that fires me up is competition. No matter what, that competition of these really fast race cars that I’m going to have to beat with this prize money on the line, it’s time to go get it. … You just need to focus on doing your job and doing the best of your ability, as good as you can.”
Burton is one of the four drivers qualified for Saturday’s Dash 4 Cash opener. The others are Chase Briscoe, Brandon Jones and Bristol winner Noah Gragson.
“(The Dash 4 Cash is) a huge thing,” Briscoe said. “For Xfinity to put up literally $400,000 as a bonus if you were able to sweep that, that’s like a brand new sponsor coming onboard for nearly half the season, so it’s a huge deal just to win one of them.
“If you could win four (Dash races), it would literally change your entire program, so it’s a huge thing for us. I think everybody financially is struggling right now with everything going on with the COVID stuff, so for a team to be able to have that swing from no new money coming in to potentially $400,000 is a huge thing.
“Any time you add that amount of money guys are going to be up on the wheel even more than what they normally are, so I don’t think it adds any more pressure.
“From a driver’s standpoint, I’m going 100 percent, whether we’re racing for a dollar or $100,000. I just want to win as bad as I can. … Obviously, winning four would be a huge feat, but if you can just win one or two of those that’s still like a brand new sponsor coming on board.”
Moving on to run for #XfinitySeries #Dash4Cash at @amsupdates, it's @NoahGragson, @ChaseBriscoe5, @BrandonJonesRac, & @HBurtonRacing! pic.twitter.com/ovIHcL6oPZ
— Xfinity Racing (@XfinityRacing) June 2, 2020