Josh Berry 'Felt Like Myself Out There Again' On Path to Finishing 4th
A couple of weeks after suffering two heartbreaking crashes in races where he had a solidly fast No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Josh Berry secured a fourth-place finish in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
Berry, who started the race from the fourth position, was a fixture near the front of the field virtually all day as he had an average running position of 9.1, and he spent 93.6% of the 312 lap event inside of the top-15, which ranked sixth-best of any driver in the field.
The driver credited his race team, led by crew chief Miles Stanley, for having a great car, and being able to keep up with the adjustments throughout the race.
"It was solid," Berry said of his race. "Our car was good. [Crew chief] Miles [Stanley], and everybody on the No. 21 team made good adjustments, made the car better. We needed to be a little better on the longer run early in the race, but he made good adjustments, and I got more competitive."
The only real hiccup for Berry all race long came on a pit stop under caution on Lap 94 during the race's second Stage. Berry, who entered pit road in 11th, was ordered by his team to stop, and back up into his pit stall after initial service had been completed on his No. 21 eero Ford as the team realized they had left one of the lug nuts loose.
Berry backed up into his stall, his pit crew tightened the wheel, and he blended back onto the track mired back in the 32nd position.
"We kept battling back. We had an issue on pit road with the left rear, and unfortunately had to back up, tighten the tire. But I had a few good restarts, and was able to get back up there and got a solid finish," Berry explained.
By the end of Stage 2, Berry had clawed his way back into 10th position, which earned him one Stage Point to go along with the five he had earned in Stage 1. Berry and the No. 21 team played the tire compound strategy perfectly in the final Stage, and found themselves near the front when the race was drawing to a close.
Berry narrowly avoided Katherine Legge, who tapped his No. 21 Ford on Lap 215, which sent her spinning. Legge would collect Daniel Suarez in the process, but Berry would solider on without issue for the remainder of the race.
As Christopher Bell narrowly defeated Denny Hamlin for his third-consecutive win in a finish, which featured Kyle Larson in the mix as well, Berry was next in line in fourth when he crossed the finish line. Berry says his No. 21 team put in some really hard work in the offseason to help boost the car's performance in 2025, and they're already showing massive improvement.
"Just really proud of everybody on this team. They did a great job. The car was really strong. And all of the work we put in during the offseason paid off, and got a good finish," Berry said.
Berry, who worked his way to the NASCAR Cup Series the hard, old-fashioned way through a tedious, yet successful local short track racing career, saw those skills translate to the NASCAR National Series ranks as he became a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship contender when he went full-time in 2022.
However, things haven't come as easy in the NASCAR Cup Series. In his rookie campaign a season ago, Berry only recorded two top-fives and four top-10s all season long in a year that ended with the five-time NASCAR Xfinity Series race winner 27th in the championship standings.
It was tough for Berry to soldier through, especially driving for an organization (Stewart-Haas Racing), which had announced it would close its doors at season's end. However, he made it through the other side, and after Sunday's superb race, Berry finally felt the payoff of being patient through a trying rookie season.
"Yeah, I just felt like myself out there again, honestly," Berry said. We've been grinding for the last year or so. This group has been great for me, and I've really enjoyed getting to work with these guys and having some great teammates out there like Joey [Logano], and Ryan [Blaney] to lean off of and learn from. And I feel like this is the first of many. This is the standard for this 21 team. We feel like we can run up here. We have some things to iron out, but all-in-all, it was a really solid day."
How solid was the day for Berry? Solid enough to mark the best-ever finish for the Wood Brothers Racing team at the 1-mile Phoenix Raceway. In fact, prior to Berry's fourth-place finish on Sunday, the Wood Brothers had never recorded a top-five finish in 43 starts at the facility.
Morgan Shepherd's seventh-place finish in 1995 had stood the test of time for 30 years as the team's best finish at the track, but now Berry has etched his name in the 100-time NASCAR Cup Series race-winning team's record books. Now, he'll look to etch it in there a few more times this season.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.