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Josh Berry Confident Entering NASCAR Playoffs At Darlington Raceway

by Hunter Thomas August 30, 2025 0 comments

DARLINGTON, SC – Making the NASCAR Playoffs is a big deal for Josh Berry. Now, the driver of the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford will look to tame the Lady in Black from the third-place starting position in the opening race of the Round of 16.

Berry has a storied past in Eastern South Carolina. For years, he competed in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series and zMAX CARS Tour at nearby Florence Motor Speedway and former Myrtle Beach Speedway. Now, the Hendersonville, Tenn. native enters the Cook Out Southern 500 trying to earn Wood Brothers Racing a championship in the organization’s 75^th anniversary season.

“It’s a big deal,” Berry said about making the NASCAR Playoffs. “It’s our biggest goal setting out this year. Obviously, to win my first race and if you do that, more than likely, you make the playoffs and here we are. It’s really cool. It’s been a fun year working with these guys. Everybody at the Wood Brothers has done a really good job.”

Making the NASCAR Playoffs is one of the team’s goals; however, the team now wants to win its first-ever NASCAR Cup Series championship. So far this season, Berry has earned two top-five and five top-10 finishes in his first season with the team. He captured his first-ever series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway back in March. Berry enters Darlington Raceway coming off two consecutive top-10 finishes at Richmond Raceway and Daytona International Speedway, so the momentum heading into the NASCAR Playoffs is certainly there for Wood Brothers Racing.

“We certainly have a long time to reflect on just making the playoffs, I guess,” Berry said. “These guys, we’re prepared. We’re confident going into this deal. We thought these tracks line up good. We don’t need to do anything spectacular, like I said. We just need to limit our mistakes and be consistent and see how far we can go. Honestly, I feel like I’m in a good place and the team is in a good place. I think we’re ready to go.”

Berry has four starts at the track, Too Tough To Tame. His best finish came in the 2024 Goodyear 400, when he finish third while piloting the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing. All other finishes have been in the 30s, including crashing out in the past two races at Darlington Raceway. That being said, numbers aren’t everything. Berry has proven he can run up front and despite what the numbers show, he has confidence heading into this weekend’s race.

“I feel pretty comfortable here,” Berry said. “I think that really started in the 4 car last spring, working with Rodney (Childers, crew chief) and studying a lot of Kevin’s (Harvick) data here, and we had a really good car. That kind of translated and built some confidence that I think I was able to translate to the Southern 500 last year and then the 21 car in the spring. I feel good. I think we ran well in both of those races last year, ran well in the spring. I don’t feel like there’s any reason why we can’t do it again this weekend.”

While the Cook Out Southern 500 offers a unique opportunity for Berry and his Wood Brothers Racing team to work towards a championship run, it’s important for the team to focus on the weekly tasks at hand. The team must perform well at Darlington first or else they’ll be forced to work towards a win over the next two weeks, rather than consistently finishing well in order to advance to the Round of 12 following Bristol last this month.

“It’s kind of more business as usual,” Berry said. “It’s easy to overthink these situations and over do it. You work all year long to prepare and get in your routine of doing things week in and week out to prepare for every week. I think a lot of times when you get to this point people overthink it and over-prepare. I feel like that can change your process and change your thinking going into this race that you’ve got to do more than what you’ve done all year. I just don’t feel like that’s the case. I think that just comes back from my background racing short tracks and stuff, and working on my race car.”

For those wondering if we’ll see Berry back in a Late Model, he said…maybe.

“It’s been a super fun year,” Berry said. “It’s great to see how things have changed so much in the last four or five years. I watched that race (zMAX CARS Tour at Florence) last night. I thought it was a really good race. I kind of missed being out there, but obviously I want to be focused on this weekend, so maybe we can get back out there sometime soon.”

The 75^th running of the Cook Out Southern 500 will broadcast live on the USA Network at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com