Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Racing Media Zoom Call
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Tennessee native Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Wood Brothers Racing, heads to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend looking to continue the positive momentum gained from a 10th-place finish in Martinsville two weeks ago. Berry answered questions about Sunday’s annual Food City 500 as part of Ford Racing’s weekly media call.
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL HEADING TO BRISTOL? “I feel pretty good about where we’re at. I think there are a lot of strong tracks for us coming up. We had a solid day at Darlington, a day that we needed, and then had a really good car at Martinsville. Unfortunately, we just kind of lost some track position here or there to take us out of a top five, but I certainly thought we had top-five pace and ended up 10th there, so I think there are a lot of positives. We had a nice off weekend and ready to get back to Bristol. We had good cars there last year and hopefully we can keep the train rolling.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE STATE OF YOUR SHORT TRACK PROGRAM? “I feel like it’s been good. It was a strength of ours last year. It seems like we struggled a little bit more at Phoenix than we expected, but obviously had a really good car at Martinsville. I feel good about everything we’ve been doing this week to prepare for Bristol. It’s obviously a little different aero package and horsepower, so there’s gonna be some adapting for everybody to that package the best we can, but, ultimately, I think we finished 12th in the spring. We had a good car there and had a good car in the fall before we caught on fire, so hopefully we can keep the momentum going and have another solid day.”
NASCAR ANNOUNCED THAT THEY’RE GOING TO SHORTEN THE FINAL TWO STAGES AT TALLADEGA. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT WILL AFFECT THE FUEL SAVING WE’VE SEEN AT PLACES LIKE THAT? “I definitely feel like it’s the right direction to go. I haven’t looked at it too specifically to see exactly how it all lays out, but you’re still gonna have to save fuel – long story, short. Briefly looking at it, the first stage is gonna be longer, so obviously there will still be some fuel saving early in the run to try to shorten your pit stop under green flag, if it goes to green flag. The question of where it goes from there is if you have two shorter stages – your second stage and your final stage – then as much fuel as you can save in the second stage will significantly shorten your pit stop for your final stage, which is when track position matters the most. I have a hard time believing that a majority of the field is gonna intentionally burn a lot of fuel that second stage just to try to get stage points and then come out last to start the final stage. We see how difficult it can be to maneuver through the pack, especially at Talladega. I think Daytona is a different story, but at Talladega is it seems to get locked down with two lanes and maybe three. It will definitely look different. Truthfully, I don’t think it’s gonna fix it, but it’ll be interesting to follow and, like I said, it’ll shake things up a bit and hopefully will make a better race for the fans.”
DO YOU THINK THE RACING WILL BE ANY DIFFERENT AT BRISTOL THIS WEEKEND THAT WHAT WE’VE NORMALLY SEEN? “No. I think you look back at the tire fall off races and I feel like they were popular and entertaining to watch. We had specific conditions for all of that to work out and it looks like it’s gonna be much warmer this weekend, which I feel like the track is gonna lay a lot of rubber. I know we’ve got a little different tire, but it seems like the biggest sensitivity to it is definitely the track temperature and with the warmer temperatures this weekend I feel like the track is gonna take rubber and it’s gonna look normal. I don’t know that it will be a big change.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR MILE-AND-HALF PROGRAM AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT TEXAS IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS? “For our mile-and-a-half program I feel like that’s an area that we’ve been working hard at. We struggled at Vegas, unfortunately – the last two times we’ve gone back there ever since we won. I did stay and do the tire test that Monday after Vegas and felt like that went really well and we learned a lot. We got some answers to some of the questions that we had, so now it’s about applying that these next few weeks and taking what we learned at that test and hopefully making it better for all of us. I’m excited for both of those races. Texas itself is definitely very unique. Both ends of the track are so much different. One and two is a good bit less banking and kind of a more disciplined-based corner in a way. It’s easy to get high, easy to get out of line, and then three and four is just hammer down, but obviously you have that bump to navigate through off of four, so it’s definitely a very interesting place going there. It’s a unique mile-and-a-half for sure.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CARS TOUR AT THE NASHVILLE FAIRGROUNDS THIS WEEK? “Yeah, I’m heavily in support of it. I think it’s awesome to see them racing there. I briefly looked at the entry list and it looks like they have a great field of cars. Obviously, Dale being there is gonna bring a lot of attention to it as well, but I think the biggest thing is just hopefully people come out and watch the race and pack the stands. I feel like the tour races have been exciting enough that the product on track will be really good. Hopefully, they can see the potential of what’s out there and when you put a bunch of really good race cars on the racetrack. The biggest thing you need is you’ve got to have people in the stands and a good race. That’s really it. At this point, I really feel like that’s all they can strive to do.”
WE’VE SEEN A BIG CROWD THERE WHEN SRX WAS THERE, BUT SINCE THEN IT SEEMS THERE HAS BEEN SOME POLITICAL GRIDLOCK IN TRYING TO REVITALIZE THE FACILITY. WITH DALE SPEARHEADING THIS, DO YOU FEEL HE HAS THE POWER TO ALMOST BRING THINGS OVER THE EDGE IN TERMS OF CHANGING THE LOCAL PERCEPTION OF THE FAIRGROUNDS AND RACING? “I don’t know. I don’t know the ins and outs of the politics locally. I know that since I was a kid it’s always been a thing there. It’s just really valuable land. We’ve seen that with the apartments that they built around the place and the soccer stadium. It’s valuable land in that area and that’s what they’re up against. That would be the difference to North Wilkesboro that sat dormant for over 20 years before they decided to go in there and revitalize it. It’s easy to look at that as an apples to apples comparison, but the reality of Nashville is that it’s probably more of a comparison to Fontana. The value of the land is so high that that’s what makes the constant bickering back and forth about what it’s best used for. I love the place and grew up racing there and going there and want to see it be there forever. Like I said, hopefully putting on big shows like they should have Saturday night could only help it. As far as how it comes to Dale, I don’t know what more he can do. Obviously, bringing the tour there, racing in it himself and promoting it and doing all the work that he has, I don’t know what else he can do unless he wants to run for mayor or something.”
WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY BEFORE YOU CAME TO NASCAR AND HOW HAS IT CHANGED SINCE JOINING THE SERIES? “Obviously, as a kid growing up it was one of the favorites for sure. There are just so many iconic races there and iconic moments growing up. I remember how hard it was to get tickets there for a long time and I remember when we were finally able to get some tickets and go in 2005 or 2006 – somewhere in there. It’s such a great racetrack and great racing. Going there and experiencing it has been so cool. I remember the first time I went there I was actually with the CARS Tour. We raced there for a couple years and got to make a bunch of laps there and you realize just how tough Bristol is and how intimidating it is, how fast it is, especially in those late model cars with as sketchy as they were there. That’s probably the best way to put it. It’s been a lot of fun racing there. It’s one that I love. There’s nothing like walking down across the racetrack to go in there to go race. It’s certainly one I look forward to each and every year.”
WHEN YOUR CAR GETS UNLOADED, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO FEEL OUT OF IT? WHAT’S THE KEY ELEMENT TO RUNNING WELL AT BRISTOL? “I feel like just having the stability to carry speed into the corners. Corner speeds are obviously really fast there and you have to be secure and stable to be able to roll the speed in the corner to make the lap time. That’s the biggest thing. It’s hard to drive the car there if it’s really on edge. You just have to go slower, so I think that’s the biggest thing we’re working on and looking forward to. I think we did a pretty good job of that last year and hopefully we can do it again on Sunday.”
YOU HAD THE ISSUE WITH FIRE FROM THE RUBBER LAST YEAR. ANY CONCERNS FOR THAT THIS YEAR? “Ultimately, I don’t think I have the concern. I’m not sure they’ve changed anything to prevent the fires, truthfully. I might not be correct on that, but it was caused by the rubber buildup from the tires wearing, so I’m sure if we see another race like we saw last fall with all the marbles and the tire wear stacking up everywhere, there’s a good chance there could be some issues with the inner wheel well fires, but if that’s not the case, then I’m sure it will be fine. Outside of any changes that they’ve made to try and mitigate that, I’m not really sure there has been any.”
WILL YOU BE TRYING STUFF FROM THINGS YOU‘VE LEARNED THE FIRST SEVEN RACES AND DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO MAKE SOME SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO RUN BETTER? “I feel like Darlington was an interesting one with the new aero package. We obviously learned a lot throughout that weekend. I thought Martinsville we did a really good job. I think the big test for us, obviously, this weekend is gonna be a big deal again and this different aero package, but I felt like we did run fairly well there last year. Hopefully, we can continue that. I think the big test for us is just gonna be Kansas – probably Kansas and Texas and trying to get back to where we were this time last year on the intermediates because we certainly had a lot of speed in each one of those races. So I think that’s the biggest thing we’re trying to look for, and hopefully that tire test at Vegas, like I said, I felt like we learned a lot through that. We got significantly faster, which was important. I was much happier with how the car drove by the end, so there were a lot of positives there and now it’s up to us to apply that to the different racetracks in a race weekend scenario and make the most of it.”
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE RACING. IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE WITH THIS CHASE FORMAT COMPARED TO LAST YEAR? ARE YOU RACING ANY DIFFERENTLY? “Truthfully, you could say that from the outside there have been less cautions, but I don’t know that I feel like the racing has been much different. Really, once we kind of survive the restart usually it gets single-filed out for a while and you can kind of get stuck. If you don’t have the wreck on the restart, it usually takes a while for something to happen just until the field gets bunched together again. I don’t know that the mindset is that much different. There may have been a few less cautions here or there. You take Darlington, the cars were a pretty big handful. Martinsville, it obviously got strung out a lot. I thought it was gonna be really interesting at the end of that race with how it played out with all the different strategies, but, unfortunately, we had the caution that kind of ended that. I don’t know. I don’t know that we all are racing too much different, but there’s a higher penalty for wrecking out. Ultimately, that’s what everybody wanted and wanted the consistency and those things to matter. Subconsciously, there probably is more give-and-take because there should be. Your finishes each and every week in each stage are what’s gonna determine whether you make the Chase or not and have a chance to win the championship. The low risk moves, I would think, would have to be less in this format than what they’ve been in the years before.”
IS YOUR MINDSET ANY DIFFERENT KNOWING THE FORMAT HAS CHANGED OR IS IT THE SAME? “It’s definitely a little bit different. You take last year like when we won early in the season or even in the Xfinity Series when I was there. I mean, I won and it makes the bad days feel a lot less painful than it does now because ultimately you know that at some point the points are gonna get reset and it’s gonna change the game. Points don’t matter in years before. Obviously, we’ve seen so much emphasis put on stage points and the regular season championship and everything that comes with that. The points still matter, but without a doubt they matter more now. It’s just the nature of the format. I think if you see some more give-and-take at times, that’s probably why because ultimately we’re all just trying to maximize our days the best that we can. Sometimes that’s finishing 10th. Sometimes that’s finishing 20th, but, ultimately, that’s our job each and every week is to try and get as many points and get the best finish we can.”
