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AVONDALE, Ariz. — Josh Berry turned in his best finish in four races since joining Wood Brothers Racing during the offseason Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway.
Berry brought the No. 21 Ford home fourth despite overcoming a mistake on pitlane that forced the team to battle from behind.
“I hate that we had that mistake on pit road with the left rear that kind of knocked us back but we were able to fight back up there and had some really good restarts,” Berry said. “I felt like myself again. It is amazing what you can do when the car is handling like that. It was really solid and staying underneath me. I am super proud of these guys.”
Berry was thrilled to finish in the top five at the one-mile track.
“Yeah, I am just honestly so excited,” the second year Cup Series driver said. “This race track was pretty tough for me last year and these guys have great cars, without a doubt here. That was proven again today and we executed pretty solidly and was able to get a good finish which is really good.”
• Kyle Busch had a consistent day in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and finished eighth for his second consecutive top-10 finish and third in four races.
“We were probably a 15th-place car on yellow’s and probably an eighth-place car on reds (tires),” Busch said. “We never really got to see our reds play out; get a long run on them. So it’s hard to say with that, but we were able to make up some really good spots on restarts with them. That saved our day.”
Busch was encouraged with the result.
“I would say that the step that we made from last year to this year was a really good step,” he explained. “Another major step like that, we can be a contender for racing for the win. There was a big change in how our car drove and felt and the grip that it gave, but not enough of what I needed.”
• Chris Buescher brought his RFK Racing Ford home in fifth for his first top-five finish of the season.
“I am really proud of this team to take this Ford Mustang and get a top five out of it,” Buescher said. “It was a fight today. I felt like we were there on the yellows and kept getting run all over by reds and I was just sitting there waiting our turn. We finally put them on and ended up in a place where it was kind of the same time as everybody else. We didn’t see the big movement, but we had them on at the end when a lot of others ran out. It made it interesting. I am still a proponent of a single tire when we come to a weekend, but Goodyear did a great job. That red tire was a lot of fun.”
• Bubba Wallace ran in the top 10 for most of the day at Phoenix, but a late-race mechanical issue saw him fail to finish. He was credited with 29th in his 23XI Racing Toyota.
“Brakes blew out. Unfortunate,” Wallace reported. “Didn’t have any sign leading up to that last restart there. Just noticed on lap three or four that the pedal just traveled further than it had – just by a little bit. Turned on my fans, came back and that was it. It’s a bummer. We didn’t have the best of a start or mid-race for our Leidos No. 23 Camry XSE team. But, felt like we finally got our big break and cracked the top-10 and make something of it. Trying to survive and just got ripped out from underneath us.”
• Ryan Blaney had an engine expire late in the race on his Team Penske Ford. He was credited with 28th place.
“It just blew up. It started with about 100 to go and I thought it was going to make it to the end but it didn’t,” Blaney explained. “It was a hard-fought day. We could never get going on restarts. Long runs I felt okay but just kind of lacked a little bit and then we were just having trouble with the engine before it completely grenaded. We were going to get a decent finish out of it, but obviously not.”
• Chase Briscoe and Spire Motorsports teammates Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley were involved in a rare multi-car accident that collected five drivers on lap 98. Briscoe explained the incident.
“That’s about the biggest you can crash at Phoenix. It was a big one,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said. “On that restart, we were three, four-wide and I just climbed over the No. 7 (Justin Haley)’s right front. Yeah, unfortunate. We were able to go from the tail (of the field) up to 12th or 13th and felt good about our No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota. Yeah, got myself in a bad spot. Was probably trying to fade a little more left with the No. 77 (Carson Hocevar) on my right rear and yeah, just went over the No. 7’s right front. Yeah, unfortunate but try to learn from it and not do it again and go onto (Las) Vegas.”
• Christopher Bell may have won three of the four races, but Daytona 500 winner William Byron, who finished sixth, at Phoenix continues to lead the standings. Byron battled back from a lap down.
“Yeah, unfortunately that caution just came out right when we were on pit road. Here at Phoenix (Raceway), you can’t get away with losing a lap,” he said. “It was just an unfortunate situation there. It was an aggressive call, and I thought that it was going to set us up for a shot. It was just crazy there at the end. We restarted 21st and got up into the top-10 pretty quickly. I feel like we probably used up a lot of tire on the reds to get the last few spots, so it was hard to get much more.”
• Katherine Legge, a sports car race winner and former Indianapolis 500 starter, finished 30th on the 37-car grid in her NASCAR Cup Series debut, driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet. The British driver became only the eighth woman in NASCAR’s modern era (1972-present) to compete in the sport’s highest level, and the first since Danica Patrick raced in the 2018 Daytona 500.
