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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Josh Berry ended a three-week streak of last-place finishes by bringing the Wood Brothers Racing Ford home second last Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Berry had made the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs based on his victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March, but was an early exit after a challenging first three races.
“I feel like, it was definitely disappointing, but each one was disappointing for its own reason,” Berry said of his three playoff races. “Bristol, for example, the fire deal and all that. I felt like that was gonna be a great opportunity for us. We had a really strong first couple runs there, so that’s why you turn the page. You look back on it and you feel like, ‘Yeah, we could have easily run in the top five or top 10 that night.’
“We had to win to advance in the playoffs, so it’s easy to get caught up in that of whether you win or not, but we still gave ourselves the opportunity and that’s really all you can ask for, so you just try to go to the next week and do it again and give yourself another opportunity.”
Berry’s been known for his resilience throughout his racing career.
“I think that every week is a new opportunity and things can change quickly in this sport. You can have a couple bad weekends and then now we come off a second-place finish,” Berry said. “I think, for me, I go back to what I’ve said all along was that I felt like we were performing well. We were qualifying well. We were doing a lot of things right. Maybe some of it was misfortune. Some of it was maybe our own mistake at Darlington with how bad the car bottomed out, but we’re still doing all the right things, so your group and yourself you can’t really question too much about what you’re doing because you’re putting yourself in position and you’re qualifying well and doing those same things.
“You just build on it week to week. For me, it’s just about years of racing experience and various situations, not just Cup racing, and how I raced growing up and then obviously all my time in the late model series.
“You’re just in so many different opportunities that no matter what, whether you win or finish last or you wreck, everybody goes to work Monday for the next race,” Berry added. “You turn the page. Whether you win, you turn the page on Monday and you go try to win again. That’s just what you do. You move onto the next one and move your focus forward and try to learn from those mistakes or those situations that happen and hope you can be better in the future.”
Berry said the New Hampshire effort was uplifting for the team.
“It’s been a good week, obviously,” Berry said. “We had three really tough weeks for different reasons, but all the guys have stayed really positive and work really well together and didn’t let the frustration of a couple weeks affect what we did week in and week out.
“We all had great cars at New Hampshire and capitalized on that. It was maybe a little more exciting than we wanted it to be, but we qualified well, raced well and a second-place finish is really good for us.”
