Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Racing Media Zoom Call
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will be making his 100th career NASCAR Cup Series start when the green flag falls this weekend at Pocono Raceway. Berry spoke about the milestone and also announced that he will not be returning to the team next season.
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT REACHING THIS MILESTONE OF 100 CUP STARTS? “It’s really cool. It’s not one I kept up with up to this point. I figured it was getting close. You hear the 100th race a lot in Cup racing just when they refer to people starting out their careers and the amount of time it takes to get things figured out and get your feet under you, so I guess I finally made that and at least have been to Victory Lane once before that time, so I’ve just been really fortunate to drive for four or five teams throughout the 100 starts, a bunch of different car numbers, but I’ve just been really fortunate with the opportunities that I’ve gotten and I’m excited for Pocono. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite tracks to go to. It’s a really fun place to drive and hopefully we can have us a good weekend.”
YOU’VE WORKED SO HARD TO GET WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT YOUR FUTURE WITH THE WOOD BROTHERS AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE AT RIGHT NOW IN YOUR CAREER AS A DRIVER? “The 100th part of your question, it’s been an amazing ride and, like I said, there have been some ups and downs, but it’s been a lot of fun and been some great opportunities over the years before that. The Wood Brothers piece, I’ll just go ahead and put it out there that I will not be back in the 21 car next year. I’m obviously disappointed about that. They’ve been amazing to work with. They’re amazing people and it’s been such a great opportunity. Obviously, going to Victory Lane for the first time and winning your first race with them will always be really special, but I’m not gonna be back in the 21 next year. I’m gonna hit the ground running and working hard to try to find out what’s out there and I’m certainly open and optimistic about any opportunities that come my way. But, first and foremost, we’re gonna do our best to finish this season strong and leave in a good place.”
I THINK YOU JUST BROKE SOME NEWS FOR A LOT OF US, BUT I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT NORTH WILKESBORO. WHAT IS YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BEING A FULL-TIME 400-MILE RACE AND HOW WILL IT CHANGE FROM WHAT THE ALL-STAR RACE HAS BEEN? “I think it will be interesting. That place seems to widen out a lot with the more laps that we run and I think it should probably open up the lanes a little bit more and lay rubber. I feel like the shows there have been pretty good over the years. Hopefully, having the additional laps and time on the track will hopefully continue to push it that way where it widens out and puts on a good race. I think we’ve seen with the horsepower change and stuff, all of that has been positive for the short track package, so hopefully that trend continues there.”
IF YOU COULD GO BACK, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR YOUNGER SELF BEFORE YOUR CUP DEBUT? “I don’t know that I have a real specific idea there. I remember feeling obviously throughout the opportunities at HMS when Chase and Alex were hurt, going through the motions of that and then having a few good results in that, and then whenever I got the 4 car opportunity that I remember being asked a lot about what my expectations were going into that and my biggest expectation in all of that was that it was gonna be really hard and it is really hard. I think that’s the biggest thing that people don’t realize – the step between the Truck Series and O’Reilly Series to the Cup Series – just how competitive it is. They’re just small margins and we’ve seen over the course of last year where you start out the season and win a race and find yourself in contention several times and we even, for our side of things, we ran second at New Hampshire to Ryan in the playoffs and ended the year with a couple of top 10s and felt good about going into the offseason. This year has certainly been a struggle and it’s how quickly things can change. I think that’s the biggest thing I’m learning through this, which is what I felt like pretty early on I had a realistic expectation was that this series is tough and you’ve got to be on it. Sometimes things work out and you’re not sure why, and sometimes they don’t work out and you’re not sure why. Unfortunately, I’m kind of living in the latter of that right now, but we’re grinding away and feel like we’ve turned a little bit of a corner the last few weeks and there’s still a lot of opportunity to go out and run well and move up through the standings and finish this year strong.”
NASCAR SAID YESTERDAY THAT CHRISTOPHER BELL’S HIT AT MICHIGAN WAS THE HARDEST OF THE NEXT GEN ERA, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO SEEING THAT AND WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO KNOWING THAT HE CAME OUT OF IT WITH A WRIST INJURY? “It’s certainly massive. The visual of that, you could just tell when there’s contact like that and the speed that he was going into the wall, it was tough. We were under the red flag and I’m like, ‘Hey, let me know if those two guys are all right because they just hit a ton.’ I obviously don’t want to speak for Christopher and how I felt and how he’s feeling, but seeing him get out of that car was certainly a positive in that whole deal. It broke the wall. It was a huge hit, but in the end it does say a lot about the safety advances that NASCAR has made, not only throughout the process of the Next Gen car, but also just over the last couple of decades. I mean, you look at SAFER barriers and HANS devices and things that have come along, it’s just amazing the progress that’s been made.”
CAUTIONS ARE UP SIGNIFICANTLY THE LAST THREE RACES COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS 12. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU SEE FOR WHY? “More wrecking, I guess, is part of the problem. You want action and we’ve had it the last few weeks for certain, and it’s felt like there’s been a lot of caution laps. I know that’s something NASCAR has been looking at, trying to figure out how to do a better job of that and clean all that up. The weird feelings I feel like from the driver’s seat is when you have the caution right before the stage end and you spend seven, eight laps under caution just to go back green for one lap to finish the stage, and then you go back to the stage break, which I know that’s the rules and that’s how it is, but I think from the driver’s seat that’s probably the one that feels the most unusual because you’re sitting there in your head thinking, ‘Why can’t we just end the stage right here at this caution and go back racing,’ but obviously that’s not how it works because that’s not how the rules are, and there is a lot more going on than that. Aside from that, I think the racing has been a little wild the last few weeks and I’m not really sure why that is, but we’ll just have to see what we get this weekend.”
WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS NOW? ARE YOU CALLING TEAMS? SPONSORS IN TRYING TO FIND A RIDE FOR NEXT YEAR? “I’m less than 24 hours from figuring this out, so I’m still just trying to put the pieces together and wrap my head around all of that. What I didn’t want to do was sit here and feed a line to you guys and then have it get announced in 30 minutes, so I feel like that would make me look pretty ignorant, so I wasn’t gonna do that. I still have a lot of representation with KHI. I spoke a lot with Josh (Jones) over the last day and it’s just about trying to put the pieces together and see what’s out there. You never know what kind of opportunities come about and where it goes from here. It’s tough to have happen, but at the same time I’ve been extremely fortunate to get the opportunities that I’ve had and been extremely fortunate to drive for the Wood Brothers and this team. Unfortunately, it’s going in a different direction, but you never know what doors might open up and we’re gonna work hard to try and land on our feet and find something. I don’t really have any expectations or plans for what that might be. I’m certainly open to really anything. I still feel like I’m the same guy that won Las Vegas. I’m still the same guy that nearly won at New Hampshire in the playoffs. It’s been a tough year, like I said, but we’ll work through it and try to find out what’s out there. The sun came up today regardless of how bad it might have felt yesterday. It might have felt like it might not, but the sun came up this morning and it’s a new day. You land on your feet and go to work and that’s all you can do. It’s a great opportunity for me to show my kids how to handle adversity and how to work through things when life doesn’t go your way and, like I said, we’ll pick up the pieces and move on.”
WAS THIS A DECISION THAT SURPRISED YOU OR CAUGHT YOU OFF GUARD? “I mean, no. No, not necessarily. You hear the rumor mill start going, so I’m not gonna say I was completely off guard. I don’t really want to expand on it much further than that. From my side of things, I didn’t exactly feel great about it. I probably would have said myself I was probably 50-50 on what was going on. It’s like I said, it’s been a tough year. That’s the reality of it. Obviously, I don’t want it to work this way, but it’s been a tough year and when you have some of the things we’ve had happen and the results that we’ve had happen, regardless of the details of it, you start to question that and that’s fair at the end of the day. If we had run better, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, but we didn’t, so now we’ve got an x-number of races throughout the rest of the year to turn that back around and change the narrative and get back closer to the front. It’s been a struggle for a lot of the Fords and a lot of the guys this year and we’ve just got to turn that around and go to the next race. At the end of the day, whether you win or you wreck or whatever you go to work on Monday and go to the next race and that’s what we’re gonna do from here on out and see how it all shakes out.”
