After a horrendous opening round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Josh Berry and Wood Brothers Racing find themselves no longer in contention to hoist the championship trophy at Phoenix in November. However, that’s not going to stop the team from trying to play spoiler.
Sunday’s Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was anything but a normal outing for Berry, a native of Hendersonville, Tennessee, finishing runner-up to his de facto Team Penske teammate of Ryan Blaney, after a heated battle over the final green-flag run.
The 34-year-old driver had fantastic speed throughout the entire weekend (as did the entire Penske brigade), but Berry had some adversity to overcome in the first third of the event that made his afternoon much more… interesting.
On Lap 83, Berry was battling with Shane van Gisbergen for a position inside the top-five when the Trackhouse Racing driver made contact with the No. 21, sending him spinning at the exit of Turn 2. While the damage to the car was minimal, the loss of track position was substantial.
It ended up taking Berry the entire second stage, and part of the final stage, to get the track position back that he lost from the spin, and as the field reached its final green-flag pit stop cycle, the iconic red and white No. 21 was back in the mix, sitting inside the top five.
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“For one, we had a really good car. It was a grind, for sure, but we had a really good car and we just chipped away at it. I kind of wish at times, maybe we should have stayed out or took two tires. I don’t know, but we just kept putting four on it and kept moving forward, and did it the old-fashioned way. It was a lot of fun.”
Having one of the strongest cars in the field, Berry and crew chief Miles Stanley decided to be one of the final leaders to hit pit road, giving the No. 21 a nine-lap advantage on Goodyear tires for the final stint of the race – and with a gap of seven seconds, which quickly began to close.
When a crash by Cody Ware necessitated a caution at Lap 255, Berry’s incredible rally had come to a bit of a halt. Having just one set of right-side tires left, the call was made to keep the successful short track race on track with tires that had nine laps on them.
That caution re-racked the field and allowed Berry to restart in the lead with 42 laps remaining, marking the beginning of an epic battle between the No. 21 and No. 12 in the final laps of the 301-lap contest.
Blaney was able to snag the lead with 39 laps to go, and while many would have assumed that the battle for the victory would be over right then and there, Berry fought back and kept things interesting right down to the end, but ultimately fell short.
“I don’t know. We lacked a little bit of fire off, but, honestly, ever since the start of the race, we were just mired in so much traffic. It was hard to know what we needed. Our long run seemed really strong, so I think it could have gone a couple different ways. Obviously, if it stays green, I think we have a chance at it. Maybe we should have taken two tires there, but ultimately, we were down a set from the spin, so we didn’t want to take our last tires that early. Still, it’s just a great day. We had a great car. Everybody did a great job. The pit stops were awesome, and we have a lot to look forward to.”
Everybody wants to win in the NASCAR Cup Series, but for Josh Berry and Wood Brothers Racing, just finishing the race was a step in the right direction, after a first round of the Playoffs which included two wrecks at Darlington and Gateway, and a race-ending fire at Bristol.
The result was also the first top-five for Josh Berry since he went to Victory Lane earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – 25 races ago.
