Josh Berry Leads Decent Day for Non-Playoff Contenders at Loudon

In an alternate universe, Josh Berry and the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team didn't suffer three consecutive last-place finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16, and they're still chasing a championship following a second-place finish in Sunday's Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

However, in this timeline, Berry and his team, a week removed from being bounced from the Playoff field, found themselves in a position to play Playoff spoiler, and had it not been for a serving of revenge served wrong by Cody Ware on Lap 254, there's a chance we'd be talking about Berry collecting his second win of the season, today.

Race Results: Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire

“Our long run seemed really strong, so I think it could have gone a couple different ways," Berry said after the race.

However, Cody Ware indeed attempted to exact revenge on Austin Dillon, crashed his No. 51 car in Turn 2, and brought out a late-race caution. This allowed Ryan Blaney and the remainder of the lead lap cars in the field to hit pit road for fresh right side tires, while Berry, who was down a set of tires after a spin at the hands of Shane van Gisbergen on Lap 82, had to remain on track with a tire disadvantage.

He'd inherit the lead, but with tires serving such a premium in Sunday's race, there was little chance Berry would be able to hang on without additional cars on the same strategy to give him a buffer on the cars with fresher Goodyear rubber.

Despite the disadvantage, Berry was able to hang with Blaney, and in the closing laps, he actually raised Blaney's heart rate a bit as he challenged for the win. Ultimately, Berry's tires would become too worn to continue the fight, but he'd hang on for an impressive runner-up finish.

Despite narrowly missing out on a victory, Berry was proud of his team's ability to fight back from a spin early in Stage 2 to come back and have a chance to not only score a solid finish, but to have a legitimate shot at the win.

“It was a grind for sure, but we had a really good car and we just chipped away at it,” Berry explained. “We just kept putting four on it and kept moving forward and did it the old-fashioned way. It was a lot of fun.”

The runner-up finish for Berry allowed the driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing driver to come home first in class among the 24 non-Playoff contenders in the field.

Along with Berry, Spire Motorsports teammates Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar had solid runs in Sunday's race and were the second and third-best finishing non-Playoff contenders, respectively.

McDowell, 40, was able to notch an eighth-place result on Sunday, which marked the first top-10 in the last 10 races for the driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet. McDowell was happy with the speed in his race car on Sunday, but wished he could have kept from losing track position throughout the day.

“It was a solid day for the No. 71 Gainbridge Chevrolet team. We had good speed and ran in the top-10 for most of the day. We lost some track position a few times. We had a bad restart that kind of got us behind. But I felt like we had good pace," McDowell said. "We had good strategy and calls on pit road and made some good improvements. We had a really good long-run car, but just needed a few more laps there at the end to get a few more positions. Overall, this team had great execution, and it was a good day. We still need a little bit more, but we’re getting close.”

While McDowell had the better finish, Hocevar was in the conversation at the front of the field more consistently throughout Sunday's race. Hocevar turned the Xfinity Fastest Lap of the race with a 29.923-second lap time on Lap 237 of the event, and Hocevar was able to notch fifth-place finishes in both Stages, which allowed him to pocket 12 Stage Points on the day.

In the end, Hocevar would fade to an 11th-place finish, but all-in-all, it was another good day for the Portage, MI native, who continues to chase his first career NASCAR Cup Series win.

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