MOORESVILLE, N.C. — With 13 races remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series season, Josh Berry is racing for an opportunity.
Berry, who learned in June he would not return to Wood Brothers Racing next season, has strung together a pair of top-10 finishes aboard the No. 21 Ford as he seeks a job for next season.
“It’s been good. Indy, obviously went really well. I was pretty happy with our car in the race. It’s such a strategy race from the start, but we executed a really good strategy and had the car to back it up,” Berry said. “To walk out of there with a seventh-place finish was really good for us, especially the year before when we were fifth on the last lap and ran out of gas. That one stung pretty bad, but it felt good to get a good result there, and then at Iowa I felt really good about our car in practice.
“We missed it a little bit in qualifying and felt like we just didn’t free up enough. I really felt like we should have been in the top five qualifying there, but then we battled out of it in the race and got a fourth-place finish. Two top 10s in a row. It easily could be three because I think at North Wilkesboro if we don’t get wrecked by the 20, the pit cycle deal burned us and created that situation, but we certainly had a car fast enough to run in the top five or top 10 there easy.”
Two more short tracks are ahead with Richmond Raceway this weekend and New Hampshire Motor Speedway the following week.
“I feel good about things,” Berry said. “I feel like our short track program has always been strong, but I feel like we’ve turned a little bit of a corner for whatever reason and I’m excited to get to Richmond and New Hampshire and hopefully have two more good weekends.”
Berry is not optimistic about landing a ride for next season.
“I don’t feel any closer now than I did two months ago if I’m being honest. We’ve had conversations. We’ve had good ones. We’ve had bad ones,” Berry explained. “We’ve had ones that we thought had potential. We had ones that we sat down and they asked for three million dollars, so it’s been a little bit of a challenge working through all of that.
“To be honest, I’m kind of to the point now where I can’t do much else other than just try to focus on Sundays and try to have days like we’ve had the last couple of weeks,” he continued. “Honestly, I feel like if we turn this deal around and run like we have the last three races and find ourselves in the top five and top 10 and nothing materializes, I kind of feel it shows more about the system than it does about me. We’ll just work through that as it comes.”
Berry is open to a return to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series or the Truck Series.
“I’m up for whatever. It just seems like there’s not a lot of movement on the Cup side,” he said. “People kind of have it mapped out of what they think is gonna happen and unless something changes that I don’t foresee happening, then it doesn’t seem like there are very many opportunities on the Cup side.
“That leads me back into what I was saying earlier with the O’Reilly Series and the Truck Series being very heavily dependent on the funding that you have to kind of put those deals together and make them work,” Berry continued. “That limits your options pretty quickly, so we’re just trying to keep doing what we’re doing and working on it. We’ve gotten some good help from everybody at KHI and making those phone calls and helping try to navigate and figure out what’s out there.
“We’re gonna keep digging and, in the meantime, try to go out on Sunday and have good results.”
