It’s been a disaster season for Josh Berry.
Coming into Sunday’s Window World 450 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the Hendersonville, Tennessee-native is sitting a dismal 33rd-place in series point standings, with only a pair of top-10s to his credit – the DAYTONA 500 and Martinsville in the Spring.
Now, a return to the 0.625-mile racetrack brought some optimism to the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse camp, considering Berry’s background and the fact that short tracks have been the forte this season for the otherwise struggling Team Penske contingent.
Following the general theme of Berry’s season, though, the No. 21 couldn’t catch a break.
The 35-year-old driver was among several top-15 runners in Sunday’s event that got trapped a pair of laps down when a caution was displayed mid-green-flag pit cycle, due to an on-track incident between Alex Bowman and Tyler Reddick. Miles Stanley, crew chief of the No. 21, chose to take the wave around, but Berry was still mired back in the field, one lap down, on the subsequent restart.
That restart didn’t pan out well for Berry, though, after Christopher Bell (also a lap off the pace) got loose in the middle of Turn 3 and hit the No. 21, sending the red-and-white Motorcraft Ford Mustang into the outside wall, and subsequently ending his evening.
“It looked like the No. 20 just got loose, chased it up into us, and we wrecked,” Berry said, clearly frustrated after exiting the infield care center.
“You’ve watched me race a lot, and I can’t put into words the amount of shit that has happened this year. I mean, we drove up to just outside the top-10, were running top-five lap times, the car was good, and then we pit and the caution, of course, comes out. [Taking the] wave around puts us back here in the shit and just get wrecked.”
“It’s disappointing. It felt like tonight was a night we could have gotten a good finish, like it looks like our teammates are going to, but just… that was tough. I’m aggravated at the No. 20, but he’s in the same position as I am and he was back there and just got loose.”
It hasn’t been a good year, at all, for Berry. The long-time short-track racer turned NASCAR Cup Series driver has an average finish of 27th entering North Wilkesboro (and with a 36th-place finish, that’s only going to get worse). It’s the third-worst among full-time drivers, with only rookie Connor Zilisch and Cody Ware currently having worse average finishes.
That’s certainly not helpful when Berry is fighting for his life to remain in the NASCAR Cup Series, or anywhere in NASCAR’s National Series, for 2027, after being bounced from Wood Brothers Racing in favor of defending O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love.
“I don’t know, it’s tough. I feel like I’ve worked my whole life to get in this position, and now I feel like people view me completely differently after this year, compared to what I’ve done up to this point. Like I’ve said, I’ve never lived through a season like this, when it’s just one thing after another – things that people don’t see, and they don’t make it on TV, and I don’t go on social media every week and post about every little thing that went wrong in our race. We just can’t catch a break, flat out.”
“Even this week, we were eighth in practice, had a fast car and, of course, qualifying gets rained out. If we get to qualify, we can get a better starting spot, better pit stall; it’s just one thing after another, it’s certainly discouraging.”
Berry isn’t in contention to make ‘The Chase’, so now, for the final 15 events of the NASCAR Cup Series campaign, it’s all about finding solid runs and finishes to put him in the eyes and minds of potential employers.
