It didn’t work out on the final restart but Sunday at Iowa Speedway was the type of overall performance Josh Berry needs to string together while racing for a job in 2025.
Berry, who leads the Cup Series rookie of the year standings over Carson Hocevar is an impending free agent due to the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the season.
There have been growing pains over the summer, in addition to the distractions, but Berry and crew chief Rodney Childers also look to be a tandem capable of running up front like they did on Sunday.
They were leading at the time of the final caution but lost the track position when Childers called for a four-tire stop. Ryan Blaney took two tires and it won him the race.
Berry also got stacked up behind two-tire Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on the restart and Berry ultimately finished seventh after spending most of the day in the top-five.
“Yeah, I mean, this is more than what we’re capable of,” Berry said. “Honestly, Sonoma — I just made a mistake. That’s as simple as that, right? And those are going to happen. So, tonight is obviously what we’re capable of, and you know, look — the reality is, we’re all racing for our jobs, man. I mean, we are. For me, I don’t know what else I can do, besides win a race, to prove that I can race at this level.
“I really, you know, we’re running up front. We’re doing some really good things. We’ve shown a lot of potential. We’re qualifying better. Racing better. I think that, you know, there’s a lot of good days coming for the No. 4 team.”
Berry and Childers hope to stay together at a new team next year and more performances like this certainly make it more appealing for prospective team owners.
What ultimately happened on that final restart anyway?
“I told Rodney to trust his instincts and that said four tires,” Berry sais. “The 47 (Stenhouse) struggled to get going going and in hindsight, I would have chose third over sixth but the outside was winning out on nearly every restart — so sometimes things don’t go your way.”
Childers chalked it up to misfortune as well.
“We probably needed to take the bottom on that restart,” Childers said. “If we did, we might have had a shot at it. Our car was really strong on longer runs all day. I was probably a little higher on air pressure than a lot of these guys because after the last two weeks and two DNFs, I didn’t want to take that chance again.”