Josh Berry is on his way out of Wood Brothers Racing, and he wants to bow out in style. Berry won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2025, and he doesn’t want to settle for just the solitary win in his stint with Wood Brothers. After missing out on the top five at the Bass Pro Shops Bristol Night Race, Berry has absolutely nothing to lose, and he is ready to do anything to win, and his fellow drivers wouldn’t want to give him an opportunity to pounce.
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After finishing 6th under the lights at Bristol, the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford driver spoke to journalist Matt Weaver, who asked Berry if he believes he can win before the season ends.
“If all these guys keep running into each other like that, I sure as h*** will jump in the middle of it,” said Berry to Weaver. “I don’t care. I’ll be right there with them. I don’t give a s*** who I run into. I feel like at times we had a good enough car; we just never had the track position starting so deep. Yeah, man, it was a blast. That was the best car I’ve had at Bristol, probably best race I’ve ran at Bristol, so that’s always positive.”
Berry is out of the Chase, and he didn’t really have a great first half of the season, but he’s turned it around rather quickly. After his 5th DNF this season, at North Wilkesboro, the No. 21 Ford driver has finished outside the top 10 only once at Gateway.
Berry has risen to 24th in the standings, and because he’s not in the Chase and he won’t be at Wood Brothers next season, Berry has absolutely nothing to lose. Which is why his saying that he doesn’t care who he is racing and his willingness to go for the win if he sees it makes Berry a dangerous prospect for all around him.
From Indianapolis to Darlington, Berry went on a hot streak, achieving six straight top-ten finishes, a feat no one had achieved in a Wood Brothers car since David Pearson back in 1976.
Berry has two top-five finishes this season. The first came in the form of a 4th-place finish at Iowa, and his best finish has been 3rd at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a track where he finished 2nd in 2025.
With just seven races to go in the season, Berry’s two-season tenure at Wood Brothers is coming to an end with one win, five top-five finishes, and 17 top-ten finishes in 65 races to date. Berry will be replaced by Jesse Love, a talented 21-year-old driver whom Ford has poached from Richard Childress Racing.
Berry is set to replace John Hunter Nemechek in the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota in 2027. The interest came from LMC’s owner, seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, for whom Berry’s stats in a single-car satellite team, like Wood Brothers in a Ford, which has struggled for most of the season, are enough to give him the ride at Legacy.
Berry on Hocevar versus Blaney on pit road
As chaos unfolded on pit road with Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar getting into a fistfight, Josh Berry watched from the sidelines with RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece for company. The Ford drivers saw Hocevar riling up the fans after his altercation with Blaney, and they too had things to say to him.
While Berry and Preece weren’t audible, their gestures recorded on camera, waving at Hocevar, suggested that Hocevar should stop talking. Weaver saw Berry’s gesture towards Hocevar and asked him what the wave was all about.
“Oh, I’m just watching the fight, that’s all,” said Berry. “Man, I didn’t really see exactly what happened, but I don’t think that’s going to be the last time that happens.”
Weaver then asked Berry if Blaney’s bust-up with Hocevar was a long overdue one from someone in the garage.
“Hell yeah, yeah, I would say so,” replied Berry. “I mean, I didn’t really see the accident to see what actually caused it, but just yeah, it was a long time coming.”
Berry did say he didn’t see the move on track that ended Blaney’s race, but his reply sounded like that of a driver who is fed up with Carson Hocevar. The Wood Brothers’ driver has faced similar contact from Hocevar himself at Watkins Glen when the Ford got loose, and Hocevar slammed into it, sending Berry into the runoff area.
The incident was on the final lap of the race, and Berry managed to bring it home for a 32nd-place finish.