Despite a late-race skirmish that appeared to hinder the speed of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Josh Berry battled to an eighth-place finish in Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, extending his streak of top-10 finishes to three consecutive races.
Berry, who entered Richmond following finishes of seventh at Indianapolis and fourth at Iowa, started a season-best third and showed strong pace from the outset. He ran inside the top five throughout the opening 70-lap Stage before finishing fifth to earn six Stage points.
Following a pit stop during the Stage break, Berry restarted the second Stage in seventh. He initially slipped to 10th before working his way back to fifth ahead of a round of green-flag pit stops. Berry made his stop, but the caution flag flew before the remainder of the field completed its stops, dropping the No. 21 to 16th and forcing the team to take the wave-around to rejoin the lead lap.
Once back under green, Berry steadily worked his way through the field, returning to the top 10 by Lap 192 and climbing to sixth by the end of Stage 2 to collect another five Stage points.
Berry was running fourth when the caution came out for the stalled car of Carson Hocevar on Lap 285 of 400. The Motorcraft/Quick Lane team elected to stay on track, preserving a set of fresh tires for later in the race.
On the ensuing restart, Berry found himself in the middle of an aggressive battle for position and was shuffled back to 10th following contact. The Motorcraft/Quick Lane Mustang Dark Horse appeared to lose some speed as a result, but Berry remained inside the top 10 for most of the closing stretch and gained two positions over the final 10 laps to secure the eighth-place finish.
“It was a decent night,” Berry told reporters at the track. “I felt like we left a little bit out there… That one restart I got tight and got jammed up behind the 48, and we were one of the last cars that stayed out there.
“That one didn’t work out, but all in all, the car was pretty good. For getting trapped under yellow twice and waving around and all that, it was still a solid day with Stage points.
“We’ll just go to New Hampshire and try to do better.”
The NASCAR Cup Series heads next to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Dollar Tree 301, where Berry will look to continue his recent momentum at a track that has been one of his strongest. He finished second at the one-mile oval last season.
