Josh Berry faces must-win odds in Bristol Night Race

On one hand, for Josh Berry to advance into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, he has to win but a disastrous start to his championship pursuit doesn’t mean he should do anything different.

The way Berry sees it, his Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 team has actually performed pretty well. The 34-year-old started third in the Southern 500 but bottomed out in the first corner and crashed out of the race.

That was a mistake but the fundamentals were there.

Last week at Gateway, Berry was racing around the top-10 for much of the first half when a Chase Elliott self-admitted mistake caused a second consecutive crash. That wasn’t on Berry at all.

“I mean, I felt like each one of those could have been solid top 10s, which really would have been all we needed to be in a much better spot this weekend,” Berry said. “So, I’m obviously frustrated with the results but I think the performance has been there.

I think we’ve done a good job (and) there’s always room for improvement but there are still positives to take out of it.”

So, while Berry concedes there is always room for improvement, he also isn’t entering the Bristol Night Race feeling as though he needs to do something drastically different to win his second race of the season.

“I don’t know that you can change that much of what you do,” Berry said. “You just go out and try to prepare the best we can, which I feel like we’ve done, and try to execute today and make the right adjustments to our cars and get in the race tomorrow and race and see what happens.

“We go every week to go win, really. That’s what all work towards week in and week out is to be competitive and to win races, so just because of the situation that we’re in it’s not like we can try extra hard or do something different that we normally wouldn’t do. Maybe there’s a play strategy-wise that we could throw if we felt like we had to, but outside of that it’s about just doing all the little things right and executing a solid night and just giving ourselves the opportunity. That’s all it really amounts to.”

And even if he doesn’t advance, Berry has won a race with the Wood Brothers in just his second full-time Cup Series season and first in the legendary No. 21. That is a success and something to build upon for next year.

“Everybody is disappointed for sure but what can you do, really,” he said. “I look at Darlington and that was a mistake on our part. That was kind of self-inflicted with how hard we hit the racetrack starting the race but last week I feel like we did a solid job and just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know.

“All of us, a lot of us in this industry have been doing this stuff a long time. There’s highs and lows and you just have to be able to stay in-between and manage it the best you can. …

“Now, if we want to advance to the next round we need to win, but we could lead 400 laps Saturday night and blow an engine or have a flat tire and I don’t think any of us on Monday would be disappointed because we ran good. The biggest thing is we just need to run well and be in contention on Saturday night and see what happens from there.”