Josh Berry claimed his best Cup Series career result with a second-place finish Sunday at Richmond Raceway. It was his fourth start in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet filling in for the injured Chase Elliott and his second top-10.
Berry was involved early in the race in an incident with Ryan Blaney but rebounded to a runner-up finish.
He acknowledged interim crew chief Tom Gray who is leading the team while Alan Gustafson is serving a four-race suspension after L-2 penalties levied by NASCAR for unapproved parts modifications at Phoenix Raceway. Gray made the pivotal call for Berry to stay out on the track during the final cycle of green flag pit stops.
“Man, this is really cool,” Berry said. “I have to give all the credit to this NAPA team. Tom, Alan, remotely, of course, and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, they made some great calls. When we got some clean track, we weren’t running bad lap times.
“I’m so glad they tried something different to get us there at the end. I felt like we were decent the whole time. Just getting in cleaner air (was key). We were free to race with Kyle. Man, what a huge day. You know, to come here and start in the back, no practice, qualifying, get spun out, work through the field like that, just second place, it’s pretty cool.”
Gray agreed that it was a collaboration between the crew and the driver.
“At the end of the race, it was a team effort, he said. “He had to help hold up his end of the bargain, and he did that. So yeah, that’s what made it work.”
“Then, at the end there, we were banking on a caution, and even without a caution, I thought we were gonna still finish pretty well. Those other guys got smart when they saw us with the strategy, so we kind of had to do something different. It all worked out really well, so it was good, and kudos to him. Like I said, he’s a big part of that.”
After the final caution and pit stop, Berry restarted second to the eventual race leader, Kyle Larson, who led the final 13 laps to claim his first Cup Series win of the season.
Jeff Gordon, four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, spoke about the growth he has seen in Berry while subbing for Elliott.
“When you look at his lap times, he is a guy that he gets in there, he feels the car out, he doesn’t take too many risks or chances until he knows what he has. Then you just start to see the lap times come and build and the runs start to come together.
“And every time I’m scanning, I kept hearing by the end of the run, Hey, those lap times are really good. Hey, those lap times are similar to the leaders’. So he clearly knows how to manage tires and manage a race well. It seems like the longer the race, the better he does. We’re really happy with the job that he has done.
“Certainly everybody has known his talent watching him in other forms of racing, late models, and the Xfinity Series. You have to put him in other cars with other teams and other people to really see how far he could take it.”
And, from what Gordon has observed, Berry has not only met but exceeded their expectations, saying, “I think he’s got a future in the Cup Series.”
