Josh Berry and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane team earned their sixth consecutive top-10 finish with a seventh-place result in Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
The finish continued an impressive stretch for Berry and the Wood Brothers Racing team, which has now recorded six straight top-10s dating back to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in late July.
With practice and qualifying cancelled due to weather, Berry lined up 14th based on NASCAR’s metric and steadily worked his way forward throughout the 500-mile event.
Berry spent much of the opening stage inside the top 15 before finishing the segment in 11th. The Motorcraft/Quick Lane Mustang Dark Horse continued to improve as the race progressed, with Berry moving into the top 10 during Stage 2 and earning four stage points with a seventh-place finish.
The No. 21 became an even bigger factor during the final segment as Berry raced his way into the top five and remained there for much of the closing portion of the race.
A brief rain delay set up the final round of pit stops, with Berry coming to pit road from inside the top five for fresh tires. Several competitors elected to remain on track, putting Berry eighth for the ensuing restart.
After briefly falling outside the top 10, Berry began working his way back through the field. He moved into seventh with 12 laps remaining and held the position through the finish, giving the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team another strong result on one of the NASCAR Cup Series’ most demanding nights.
“It was a lot of fun,” Berry told reporters at the track. “There were a couple of runs where I thought we were super, super good. I just struggled a little bit firing off, but the trade-off of that was we were kind of always moving forward throughout the runs and then just how the race played out at the end.”
Berry felt taking tires following the rain delay was the right decision, although the restart didn’t unfold quite as he had hoped.
“I probably should have picked the top, but all-in-all the guys did a really good job. We had a really solid car for no practice. That’s all you can ask for.”
Berry’s seventh-place finish made him the highest-finishing driver outside the Chase field in the opening race of the 10-race championship stretch. While pleased to keep the team’s top-10 streak intact, he felt the strength of the No. 21 throughout the night left an opportunity for an even better result.
“But I feel like there was more out there tonight,” he said.
Berry and the Wood Brothers team will look to carry their momentum to World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis for Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 on the 1.25-mile oval.
