Josh Berry and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane team showed early speed in Sunday’s Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta before being swept up in a multi-car crash shortly after the start of Stage 2. The damage sustained in the Lap 82 incident was too severe for the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse to continue, resulting in a 38th-place finish.
Berry started 10th and quickly established himself as a contender, running inside the top five and climbing as high as second during Stage 1. The promising start, however, unraveled early in the second segment and dropped him from 13th to 25th in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings.
“It looked like I faded up a little bit to give the 20 room, and Ty [Gibbs] went to make a move it looked like and we got together,” Berry said. “It’s just a racing deal at Atlanta.”
Berry said it’s unfortunate to drop out of a race so early.
“In this style of racing I think all of us just want to make it out with a decent finish,” he said. “We were able to do that last week [in the Daytona 500], and we were able to do that in the Duel, but not so lucky this time.”
Despite the result, Berry was encouraged by the overall pace of his Mustang.
“I felt like I was really strong at the beginning,” he said. “We got pretty tight at the end of the first run and tried to make it better. We probably made it worse at the start of [the second Stage]…You lose a little bit of track position, and your car handles so much worse that it’s hard to tell. That’s why we all race so hard to stay up front…because the cars drive so bad in mid-pack, but yet you have no choice.
“Overall, the guys did a good job. We had a really good car here last year. I think we have a little bit of work to do coming back here in the summer, but overall, the guys do a really good job here.”
Berry and the Wood Brothers team now shift their focus to next Sunday’s DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas.
