Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Josh Berry Discusses His 2024 Season

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Josh Berry Discusses His 2024 Season · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
Yeah, I'm excited to get to Dover. Obviously,
0:02
it's been a really good track for us on the
0:05
XFINITY side of things the last couple years.
0:09
Obviously, with junior merge sports,
0:11
and they have really strong cars there, too, for sure.
0:13
So that's definitely helped.
0:15
And yeah, some great results
0:16
there on the XFINITY side. I
0:17
went in 22. Had a really solid race there
0:21
last year in the 48 finish and temp. So
0:25
I think that should be a little bit more of a
0:29
confidence boost for us going there. I
0:30
felt like that was a good race for me in that
0:32
opportunity. I really kind of started to
0:34
feel more comfortable throughout that opportunity
0:38
with the 48 and just getting more adjusted to
0:40
the car. So I think that we feel good
0:44
about where we're at. We feel like we've been
0:46
running better than we finished. We've
0:48
been running better than we've been finishing. The
0:51
data showed that for us. So
0:53
we just have to keep plugging along and the
0:55
results will come. Hey, thanks. Thanks,
0:57
Josh, for joining us today. I
0:58
got a question. I mean, it's no secret and
1:01
in Dan, before you get mad at me, I'm a Mustang fan,
1:05
but there's no secret. The Ford, the dark horse hasn't
1:10
actually won a race this year. We've
1:12
gone through 10 races. But if you look at that, it's
1:15
not. It may. I
1:16
don't think it's the design because you guys have had
1:18
speed. Joey said polls. Michael
1:20
McDowell said polls you've run. You've
1:22
run well. Do you think it's a product
1:24
of the of where they're just playing, catch up with
1:27
the design? I mean, from your seat or do
1:30
you think, you know, it's something where there's
1:32
there's kind of this racing luck involved where your
1:35
bad pit stops or, you know, you caught up in
1:37
somebody else's mess. Do you think that's maybe the
1:40
reason that's kept a Mustang from Victory Lane
1:43
this year? Oh, man, it's it's hard to
1:47
say. I don't, you know, I don't
1:49
really necessarily want to blame luck. You
1:52
know, I mean, a lot of times on the stuff you
1:54
make your own luck, right? I
1:55
think there's things that, you know, for at least for
1:57
me on the on the four team side of things, I
1:59
can't speak for those other guys. You
2:01
know, I feel like that when we've we've had our
2:04
car driving like we want, we've had speed. We
2:08
saw that at the short tracks. Even,
2:10
you know, Texas, we got, you know, we had an
2:12
accident, but we were knocking on the door of a
2:15
top getting up into the top 10. You
2:18
know, so for us, it's just a combination of everything,
2:20
I think, really. You know, we've had we've had
2:22
some races where we didn't run quite like we wanted
2:24
and we've had several races where we've been really
2:27
fast. And we've had, you know, a
2:29
miserable day on Pit Road. So
2:31
it's a combination of everything. I
2:32
mean, the reality of it is, is it's just hard to
2:34
win at this level. I don't think, you know, for
2:36
me, I'm not necessarily panicked. I
2:41
think that we're going to continue to get better on
2:44
the four team. We're going to continue. I'm
2:46
going to continue to get more comfortable with Rodney
2:47
and this group. And I feel like if we keep
2:49
doing the right things, we'll keep running better.
2:52
You know, it's just and
2:54
everyone at Ford's working really hard to write. I
2:57
mean, on the arrow side of things, on the engine side
2:59
of things, there's lots of things that go into it.
3:01
You know, that they can that
3:04
we know that we keep where areas that we can improve
3:06
on and we just you keep doing that. You
3:09
know, ultimately they they just won the championship
3:11
last year and all three divisions, right? And
3:12
everybody's waving the white flag and panicking, right?
3:16
So I think we'll be fine.
3:18
It's just going to take a
3:18
little time. Thanks, pal. I
3:20
appreciate it. Have fun over this weekend.
3:22
Thank you. All
3:24
right. Thank you, Greg. Let's
3:25
go to Stuart Weber. Hey, Stuart. Hey,
3:29
guys, Josh, as mentioned, three different attempts in
3:33
the cup series at Dover, three different teams. And
3:35
from my perspective, it's kind of been three very
3:38
different situations going into it from the first
3:41
ever cup start to being the relief driver over at
3:45
Hendrick to now being a full time guy with the
3:47
team. Can you kind of describe the
3:49
different mindsets for you going into your races at
3:52
Dover as you you head into it here this week? Yeah,
3:56
each one was, you know, so, you know, each one's
3:59
different, right? I think, you know, obviously
4:01
my first cup start there being with Spire, they were
4:04
pretty much like, don't wreck the car. We're
4:07
not really here to race. We're
4:08
just going to ride around and do the best we can.
4:12
But it was still fun to get
4:13
to run a cup series race. You
4:14
know, I was part time in the X -Men series like
4:16
that. And it was a great experience
4:18
for me to come get to do. And,
4:20
you know, last year in the 48, that was, you know, it
4:23
was a lot of fun, right? I
4:24
think we had come off really strong. We
4:25
run second and next finish race today before. So
4:27
to get a top 10 in the cup race was was was a
4:31
lot of fun. I think it was a great
4:32
opportunity for me to work with those guys and learn
4:34
and run a race and be competitive and get a get
4:37
a solid finish. So yeah, I think with all
4:39
that now, I feel, you know, more excited to go
4:43
back and work with Rodney and these guys. I
4:44
think that they've had some strong cars. You
4:47
know, they've had good cars at Dover even in the in
4:50
the next generation. Right. I think sometimes we
4:52
forget, you know, they were in a totally different car
4:54
than what a lot of, you know, that those guys have
4:57
had over the years. And, you know, they've had good.
5:00
They had good cars there last
5:01
year, had an issue with a tire that put them behind.
5:05
So I think we've seen that
5:06
these tracks that we can kind of at least for it
5:09
seems like so far, we've been able to see that
5:11
these tracks that we kind of have circled that that
5:13
we know that I'm a little more comfortable at and
5:16
they have good cars that we've been able to circle
5:18
those and we've had strong runs at nearly every one
5:20
of them. So hopefully that we can do
5:22
the same thing as we can. You
5:23
kind of mentioned it before those last two times you
5:26
went to Dover, you would race the Xfinity series the
5:28
day before this time. You're
5:30
not this time this year. You've
5:32
been all cup series and we kind of talked about it
5:34
before the season started, just how you're going to
5:36
be able to focus on cup. How
5:38
much have you noticed that through these first couple
5:40
of months of the season, your ability to focus just
5:43
on the one series? Yeah, no, I think it's helped
5:48
with the cup car for sure. I
5:50
felt like last year that even though usually there
5:53
were several races that we had good results, there was
5:57
still adaptation from the Xfinity car to the next
6:01
gen car and how it drove differently and how it felt
6:05
and just especially coming off of a race like that,
6:08
where the Xfinity race where you're running 200
6:11
laps in a car that's much different. I
6:14
think just being able to focus on the cup car has
6:16
been a little bit of a weight off my shoulders and
6:19
just making sure that I understand how to continue
6:24
to involve and learn how to adapt to that. I
6:28
don't know if the results will be any different, but
6:30
I think it's a little bit easier from bouncing back
6:32
and forth between the cars. Just
6:34
the cars, I mean, you just visually look at them. It's
6:36
just so incredibly different that it's just making it
6:38
continually hard to jump back and forth like that,
6:41
especially when you're trying to learn on the
6:43
fly. Thanks, Josh. And
6:47
that's a long way from the Xfinity garage all the way
6:49
to the other end of the cup car. I'm
6:51
on a walk in there for sure. Exactly.
6:55
All right, let's go over to Trey Downey. Hey,
6:57
Trey, welcome to the call. Go
6:58
ahead. Thanks, Dan. Hey,
7:01
Josh. I want to look ahead to the
7:03
next couple of weeks. Next week we go to Kansas for
7:07
the first time this season. Over
7:08
the past couple of years, I feel like Kansas has
7:10
kind of become one of the more favorite spots for
7:15
drivers and fans. From a driver's perspective, what
7:18
makes Kansas so fun to drive? Well,
7:22
I think the biggest thing, I think, from my side of
7:26
things, especially, you know, that was another race
7:28
that I had experienced last year in the 48. And
7:31
I think Kansas just races really well with the next
7:33
gen. I think just having the
7:35
different lane options, you know, top, middle, bottom
7:40
against the fence, all those, the restarts are
7:42
crazy. I think it just puts on a
7:44
really good race there. And it's in Kansas is unique.
7:48
You know, it's kind of at this
7:49
point where it's starting to age and where the tires
7:52
a little bit so that there's that side of
7:54
things, right? Like you kind of got to make,
7:56
you don't, I mean, you got to be conscious of how
8:00
you're pushing the tires and sliding the tires,
8:02
which which is more fun as a driver, just to know
8:05
that you kind of have to pay a little bit more
8:07
attention to that. So all those things together,
8:10
I think it just puts on a puts on a good track as a
8:13
mile and a half. And it's one that I've been
8:15
been looking forward to going back to, like I
8:18
said, kind of before, I think it's a race that I
8:20
ran much better than I finished last year. So
8:23
I'm excited to go back and experience that again with
8:26
with my new team and build off of our intermediates
8:29
earlier this year. And then the next week at
8:32
Darlington, it was announced that you're going to be
8:35
thrown back to the Rodney's cars. Just
8:39
whose idea was that to throw back to one of
8:42
Rodney's cars? And what's it going to mean to
8:44
you to be carrying one of his schemes at Darlington?
8:49
Yeah, I think, I mean, honestly,
8:51
it was a, you know, a culmination of a lot of
8:54
people at Stewart Haas Racing and also our partner
8:57
Harrison's that kind of jumped on board and helped
8:59
make all that happen. You know, when being grassroots
9:04
is the theme this week, right? Like,
9:07
I think that created some opportunity for us to maybe
9:10
feel a little bit more at home with the with the
9:13
whole throwback idea and and what we do with those.
9:16
You know, I'm not I definitely
9:18
was not interested in throwback throwing back to
9:20
myself. I definitely wanted to do
9:23
somebody else and just open the opportunity with Rodney
9:26
and Rodney's career racing late models before becoming
9:29
a crew chief. And then and then everybody
9:31
buying into that Harrison's buying into that, helping
9:34
make the car, the branding, changing up their branding
9:37
to adapt to that. You know, it just made it all
9:39
make sense and you know, it's a cool deal. So
9:42
Rodney was really excited. We
9:43
surprised him a couple weeks ago with the with
9:46
the unveil that he was super excited for that. And
9:48
it's just cool thing, right? It
9:50
just gives us opportunity to give back just a little
9:52
bit to a lot of the people that do a lot for
9:54
us and it's more than just throwing decals on a car
9:57
to sell diecasts or something like that. You
9:59
know, it's for us, it's this one really has a lot
10:02
of meaning for for especially for Rodney and
10:05
him thinking back to his career and his growing up
10:09
and learning racing. So it'll be fun. I
10:11
know it'll be cool for him to have his family there,
10:13
I'm sure. And watch the car go around
10:15
the track. And then you've kind of been
10:17
one of the faces of grassroots racing over the
10:20
past five, 10 years or so. I
10:22
mean, just what do you, how important is it that
10:26
they're doing that as the theme this year at
10:29
Darlington and kind of putting grassroots racing
10:32
like more on a pedestal that weekend? Yeah,
10:36
I know. I think it's really cool.
10:37
Like I said, more than anything,
10:39
I hope as many people participate as they can.
10:41
It's, you know, it's hard
10:43
sometimes with that idea. Right.
10:44
We all have so many sponsors that are so
10:47
incredibly important to our programs. Right.
10:48
And they're going to have to buy in and change up
10:51
the branding and everything to make this all happen.
10:54
You know, so sometimes it's not
10:54
as easy as it looks from the outside to make all
10:57
this happen. But overall, it's, you know,
10:59
it's always cool to me to see, you know, pay
11:02
attention, you know, people paying attention to that
11:04
grassroots level. I mean, there's so many great
11:06
tracks, you know, around, you know, around Darlington
11:08
and the South Carolina area, North Carolina area
11:11
that put on a lot of great racing. So
11:13
anyway, we can do to shine a little light on that and
11:16
help that side of things, I think is a plus in my
11:18
eyes. Thank you. Yep.
11:21
All right. Thank you, Trey. I
11:22
don't see any hands up, but I'm just going to go
11:24
to go to Bob and see if Bob, if you've got
11:27
something there that you want to ask Josh. Yeah,
11:31
sorry. I got in here late. So
11:33
if it was asked, that's fine. But
11:35
I'm curious, like looking ahead to like All -Star and
11:40
other short tracks, do you have any views on, you
11:42
know, what tires should be used and, you know, what,
11:45
what do you think could work there tire wise? Yeah,
11:49
hopefully, I mean, I don't know, hopefully they take a
11:52
stab at it. Hopefully they swing for the fences
11:53
a little bit. I think with the All -Star
11:55
race, I think that would be a great opportunity to
11:57
learn something. You know, I've heard some
11:59
rumors are flying around a little bit about trying
12:02
some stuff with some different compounds. Yeah.
12:05
I mean, I think those are all great ideas, right? I
12:07
think they need to swing for it. They
12:09
need to get on the other side of it. See
12:11
if they can learn anything. See
12:12
if it makes a difference or not. I
12:14
think those are all, you know, things that we
12:17
definitely, we need to do. I
12:20
mean, we need to do it sooner rather than later
12:21
too, right? I think they need to get
12:24
aggressive with it. I think the All -Star race is
12:25
going to be a good opportunity to do that. On
12:28
the same thing, it's going to be tricky with it being
12:30
a repave. I mean, even if, you know, I
12:34
mean, even go back to my years of short track
12:36
racing, right? Like when they repaved a short
12:37
track around here, it was always, it always took a
12:41
while for it to run in and there'd be multiple
12:43
grooves. And we always struggled with
12:45
tires blistering and things like that. So
12:47
it's going to be a challenge for sure. It's
12:49
definitely going to be a unique situation. But
12:51
I think that it's something that they're going to have
12:54
to do to try to help the product for the race. And
12:57
I think they have some ideas and we've tried to
12:59
give them more ideas. And we'll just have to see
13:01
where they take it and what they come up with. I
13:08
take it you're good. You're muted, but I take it
13:10
you're good. Bob, all right. Thank
13:12
you. Let me check with Dustin.
13:14
Dustin, are you good? Got
13:15
anything for Josh? Thanks. Hey, Josh, just to follow
13:19
up on that is, as you say, the repave and
13:24
everything with Wilkes -Burl, even if there's a change,
13:28
what do you hope to see? And
13:29
really, how does it carry over to some other track?
13:34
Or is it as much trying? I
13:37
mean, I don't just curious how much you can learn out
13:39
of a situation where it's a repave and throwing
13:43
something, if it's something dramatic at it. Yeah.
13:47
Well, I mean, one thing you can't, I mean, I think
13:49
the reality is this, is that it's going to be
13:51
single lane. No, I would really be surprised
13:55
if we have more than one groove. And
13:57
it seems like, and that's just because that's just
13:59
the nature of a repave, right? The
14:01
more you run on that, the asphalt, the better it
14:03
gets, how it seems to widen out. You
14:07
know, it usually takes time with those to get run in.
14:10
So, and it seems like the, you
14:13
know, the short tracks that are single lane is the
14:16
biggest problem. So, you know, I think that
14:19
this is going to be a way to learn because we pretty
14:22
much know before we get there, there's not, there's
14:24
not going to be two or three lanes at North
14:25
Wilkesville, right? It's going to be a short track.
14:27
It's whatever the groove ends up
14:28
being, whether it's right around the bottom, middle,
14:30
whatever, it's kind of going to be the preferred
14:32
groove. So, I think that going there
14:35
and knowing that, you know, it's going to, you know,
14:39
if we can make, you know, whether it's, you know,
14:42
softening the tires or giving us multiple, you
14:45
know, different compounds or whatever that they decide
14:47
to do to help make that look better, I think could
14:50
give a, you know, it's just going to be an
14:51
opportunity to learn, right? I
14:53
think that that's, you know, I fear that even if
14:57
they go soft on the tires that they, you know,
15:01
they're, you're going to find more of an issue with
15:03
heat versus wear, you know, that's where it's going to
15:06
be. That's where I think as a, what
15:07
you would be concerned about would be just like
15:10
the tires blistering or something like that, not
15:12
really wearing. But I don't know, like I said,
15:15
it can't, I mean, it has to be better than what
15:17
we've had at Martinsville and some of those places
15:19
where we really struggled with the passing. So
15:22
I think, you know, they can, they just got to get
15:24
aggressive with it and see what happens. I
15:25
feel like. Thank you. All
15:30
right. Thank you, Dustin. Deborah,
15:32
Deborah, go ahead. You get the last week of Josh.
15:36
Okay. Thank you. Sorry.
15:37
I got here late. I'm out more on my yard. No,
15:40
I knew it was you, Deb. I just see Deborah's iPhone.
15:43
I knew it was you, Deb, but
15:44
I like seeing Deborah. It's good. Around
15:46
that week. Yeah. And I had my alarm set,
15:51
but when I get to the back of my property, it
15:53
doesn't have cell service. So
15:54
it didn't go off. I'm sorry. Josh,
15:56
when you're talking about North Wilkes -Burrah, Will
15:59
and the new pavement, the repaving all, the fact that
16:03
you've got the cars tour running there that week,
16:06
will that possibly help the groove widen out faster
16:12
once you all get there? Yeah,
16:14
I think that'll definitely help. I
16:16
think the more racing they have on it, the better,
16:18
you know, that'll be the more the track will get
16:21
run in and hopefully get, you know, take rubber and
16:26
grip up a little bit. I think, you know, the
16:28
biggest thing, we see a lot, you know, even
16:30
thinking back to the short track stuff is just, you
16:33
know, when they repave these places, they're just
16:34
slick. You know, they're really slick.
16:36
They're really slick outside the
16:38
groove. You know, the pavement's so
16:40
grippy that, you know, all the dust and dirt and
16:43
everything just sticks to the asphalt almost in a
16:45
way. So really, you kind of, it
16:47
just makes it hard to get outside the groove, to lay
16:50
down rubber, to clean the track up, to get it fast
16:53
enough that we can race side by side. But
16:56
yeah, to answer your question, yeah, the more
16:58
cars that are out there running, I think the better
17:02
it'll be, the more it can help. You
17:04
know, hopefully, hopefully we can get it going pretty
17:06
good by, you know, by the All Star Race itself. But,
17:10
you know, at the same time, it wouldn't surprise
17:12
me if it takes a year or two for it really to come
17:15
into its own.