Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Kansas Playoff Media Availability
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse in the NASCAR Cup Series for Wood Brothers Racing, is coming off a second-place finish last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Berry participated in a Ford media call this morning to talk about that performance and what goals lie ahead over the final six races of the season.
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT’S THE MOOD IN THE SHOP AFTER SUNDAY’S RUNNER-UP FINISH? “It’s been a good week, obviously. 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.”
WHAT HAS STOOD OUT ABOUT BEING AT THE WOOD BROTHERS/PENSKE THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW OR EXPECT? “There’s a lot of structure and organization and it starts at the top across the whole board. It’s been a lot of fun to work with these guys. Being able to work with Ryan, Joey and Austin, these guys have been doing this a long time and I rely on them to learn from and keep us pointed in a good direction and trying to continue to work with them and do our part. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been really happy with Miles (Stanley). I think he’s done a great job in his first year. He’s done a great job leading our team, and I’m just excited about the future.”
ARE THERE CERTAIN THINGS IN BEING AROUND THOSE GUYS THAT HAS HELPED YOU RAISE YOUR LEVEL AS A DRIVER? “It’s hard to say. I mean, there are little things from each one of them. I think each one of those guys has a really high work ethic. It’s really obvious from being around them that they work really hard at this stuff to be really good. Obviously, they’re champion guys and have won a lot of races, so being around that continues to motivate you to keep stepping up your game and keep doing all the little things and focus on that stuff, keeping all of that right. I think when it comes to talking about race cars, I feel like I’m probably closest to Ryan on how we communicate in our meetings and how we see the races and talk about our cars. It’s been really cool working with these guys. They’re all great.”
THE BIG TOPIC HAS BEEN WHEN A NON-PLAYOFF DRIVER RACES A PLAYOFF DRIVER. HOW DO YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THAT? “We’re racing for ourselves and our teams and our partners, and we want to do everything we can to help them run well and win races, but you’ve got to take care of those guys. It’s bigger than you in that aspect in that there’s a company with hundreds of employees and you’ve got to be mindful of that – to take care of those guys when you get around them and get to racing with them. Obviously, the expectation is to race hard and do the best we can, but we’ve got to take care of our teammates and, honestly, that’s how it is week in and week out. It can create a pretty toxic environment if you don’t hold the drivers accountable on that of taking care of each other and taking advantage of each other. They do a good job of that here. I was pushing hard to do everything I could to keep Ryan honest. I made him work for it, for sure, but I knew if I was able to get up beside him that I was gonna have to be careful. I was gonna have to make sure that nothing bad happened.”
DOES IT REALLY GET TOXIC BACK AT THE SHOP WHEN TEAMMATES HAVE ISSUES? “It’s hard to say. I think those guys, it depends on what side of the fence you’re on, I guess, but each individual race team works for the same organization, but they’re gonna have their guy’s back and they’re gonna support their guy. Yeah, it can create divide and that situation on Sunday, I haven’t looked at it too close, but most of the time stuff like that was building to a certain boiling point and then it went over. I would assume that there is a point that maybe Ty feels like he gives Denny breaks and Denny doesn’t return the favor, and then for whatever reason in that race he decided not to and Denny got into him. I think that’s why it’s important about communicating well and establishing that that type of stuff isn’t gonna happen, and it just doesn’t let it get to that point. That’s the extent of it. I think you need to obviously race your teammates hard and we’re racing everybody hard, but it goes a long way if you just cut your guy a break and hopefully receive it on a later day, but you don’t want to be in a situation like they’re in.”
YOU ARE VERY RESILIENT AND NEVER GIVE UP, WHICH IS WHAT YOUR FANS LOVE ABOUT YOU. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT ATTITUDE? “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. 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. 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.”
HOW HARD IS IT TO TURN THE PAGE AFTER THREE LAST-PLACE FINISHES? WAS IT DIFFICULT? “Not necessarily because each one, I feel like, it was definitely disappointing, but each one was disappointing for its own reason. 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.”
THERE’S A NEW RIGHT SIDE TIRE THIS WEEKEND AT KANSAS. HOW MUCH DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU KNOW ABOUT IT AND HOW MUCH ARE GOING TO NEED TO LEARN IN PRACTICE AND THE RACE? “I don’t expect it to be too much different. I think it’s a little bit of a construction change that we’ve run before, I believe, a couple times this year on different intermediate tracks. The fall off might change a little bit that really a lot of that time week to week we judge off of practice and see because the weather changes it, the track conditions, what all the series are there that particular weekend can have a little bit of an effect on that, so I think the biggest thing we’ll look at is how much fall off there is in practice and try to judge from that accordingly.”
ARE YOU HAPPY TO SEE THE PROGRESSION IN THE TIRE FALL OFF WE’VE SEEN THIS YEAR? “Yeah, I think Goodyear is going in a really good direction. I know they’re working really hard to try to create that and go about it the right way. I think it’s been really positive. I think they’re all working really hard and testing and constantly evolving, and I think just creating some more passing and better racing, in my opinion. It creates more strategy, too, because there’s a bigger difference between staying out or taking two tires, four tires, and I think you can make a more compelling race.”
THE ROVAL IS UP AFTER KANSAS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT WITH THE NEW TURN EXITING BACK ONTO THE SPEEDWAY? “That was definitely a very interesting change. That made the restarts pretty chaotic with that hairpin, but I’m looking forward to going back there. We’re obviously going to have a little bit different tire there than what we’ve run the past couple of years, so I think that will change things a little. Everybody is still adapting to the layout, but, for us, we’re just trying to continue to improve. That’s the biggest thing we’re looking at. Given our situation, it’s gonna give us an opportunity to hopefully try a couple different things setup-wise to see if we can find something that helps me feel just that little bit more comfortable. Other than that, I think we’re just gonna go try to have a solid, quiet day and hopefully get a decent finish.”
WOULD YOU RATHER SEE THAT RACE ON THE OVAL? “I would definitely rather see it on the oval. I don’t dislike the Roval when it comes to different road courses and we’ve had some pretty good results there in the Xfinity Series, and even had a decent race there last year in the Cup car, but I think, for us and where we’re at right now in the sport, the Cup car puts on such a good race at the intermediate tracks that I think we all leave there wishing that we were on the oval.”
