Josh Berry has been to New Hampshire Motor Speedway three times in his NASCAR Cup Series career, with two different organizations and three different crew chiefs. Still, each time, the Hendersonville, Tennessee-native leaves New England with a top-three result.
So, I’d say the NASCAR Cup Series’ annual trip to the 1.058-mile short track known as “The Magic Mile” came at the perfect time, as Berry is still searching for his place in the always-changing landscape of NASCAR’s National Series.
It’s part of what has been an amazing month-long stretch for the 35-year-old driver, which has included a pair of top-five results at Iowa Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway, as well as four consecutive top-10s – the first driver to earn four straight top-10s for Wood Brothers Racing since Morgan Shepherd in 1994.
“I’m not doing anything different,” Berry said when asked about what his streak of good runs was proving to those making decisions about rides for next season. “Maybe I was a little rougher today than normal. I don’t necessarily like racing like that, but these guys know what I’m up against right now. I think most of them have a lot of respect for me, so I think they understand.”
“Knocking everybody out of the way as soon as you get to them is not sustainable over the course of a Cup season, but I think in this scenario you’re just fighting for everything you can. As I said, I’m not doing anything different. I’m not prepping any different. I’m not studying any different. I’m doing the same things I’ve always done, and we’ve just had better cars and, honestly, better luck. It feels nice to capitalize on it. I have four top 10s in a row, and it really would be five if it wasn’t for getting wrecked at Wilkesboro.”
While, yes, a third-place finish is the best result for Berry since he recorded a second-place finish at the New Hampshire racetrack last Fall, there was, without question, a major opportunity for Berry to park the iconic red-and-white No. 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in Victory Lane on Sunday, one that was foiled by a miscue on pit road.
Berry was in contention to take the victory on Sunday and was neck-and-neck with his pseudo teammate, Ryan Blaney, who went on to win the Dollar Tree 301, but that final pit stop, the money stop, ended up being what put the No. 21 outside the top-10.
“That last [pit stop] I was running my lights, and Kyle [Larson] was hitting me and knocking me past my lights, and then I’m not sure. Obviously, I don’t want to speed in that situation either, so I tried to get a little too much getting in the box. I slid a little long. The pit stop wasn’t great either, and that’s all she wrote.”
While that ended up eliminating Berry’s chance to win the race, there was a period in the final run to the finish where the No. 21 was taking massive chunks out of the lead, as Blaney had to deal with lapped traffic.
“It was a lot of fun,” he added. “Our car was really good. The guys did a great job. We had a solid weekend from start to finish and led a lot of laps. We were in control there for a little while, but that one caution fell, and it just felt like that was one of them that was gonna bite us at some point, and ultimately it did. I slid a little long, and we didn’t have a great pit stop and lost a little track position, but I fought hard there. I was surprised we were able to get back to third and get as close as we could to those guys. I don’t know, we just needed to start a little closer.”
Next for Berry and the NASCAR Cup Series field is Daytona, a facility that has chewed up and spit out the former CARS Tour champion, by virtue of a crazy wreck on the backstretch in 2024 which saw him hit the inside SAFER Barrier upside down. If Berry can make it through Daytona with a solid finish, the for-hire driver should be able to continue flexing some muscle at Darlington, a track he’s notoriously had speed at.
