Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels for his friend and longtime collaborator, Josh Berry, amidst a disaster season in the NASCAR Cup Series that seemingly has no viable competitive future after his impending dismissal from Wood Brothers Racing.
Most recently, Berry was crashed while racing Christopher Bell for 25th, but only because the latter broke traction underneath him. Berry lamented all the things that no one sees behind the scenes that is responsible for a season in which he sits 33rd in the standings.
Wood Brothers Racing announced last month that Berry’s option would not be picked up for the 2027 season, being replaced by reigning O’Reilly Series champion Jesse Love, despite winning a race at Las Vegas last year.
“Yeah, man it’s awful,” said Earnhardt on his Dale Jr. Download podcast. “Josh was running good too. Drove up to like 13th. No one will ever give a shit that they were actually running pretty good. You’ll just see that. They’ll just see the statistics.”
Earnhardt is responsible for discovering Berry. They forged a friendship on iRacing while Berry was racing Legend cars and four cylinders at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. Earnhardt hired Berry to drive his Late Model Stocks for the better part of a decade where they were widely successful.
They won track championships at Hickory and Motor Mile plus a CARS Tour and NASCAR Weekly Series championship respectively. Earnhardt finally was able to get a O’Reilly Series season funded for him where he became a championship threat and then Cup Series contender with Stewart-Haas Racing and Wood Brothers.
“We got him racing. He raced with us for 10 years,” Earnhardt said. “We won hundreds of races, track championships, national championships. We won O’Reilly races. And we did everything we could to give him everything we could give him. And he was presented this opportunity to race at Haas following (Kevin) Harvick into the 4 car at Harvick’s retirement. There was this big announcement. I mean, it was emotional. It was cool.
“And he ends up winning his first race for the Wood Brothers. I’m hearing that Penske was very high on Josh. Blaney and all the guys were saying that he was great as a teammate and a big addition to the operation. They had this really solid first year. He wins a race at Vegas, qualifies, runs well at a lot of different racetracks. And it looked like things are going to be positive. And I don’t know, I do not know what has happened.
“I really don’t know what’s happened. I don’t bug Josh too much about it, I don’t bother. I think the world of the Wood Brothers, I think the world of them. I idolize Leonard and them.”
Berry doesn’t bring much personal funding and needs someone to hire him on merit as a Cup Series race winner. Earnhardt just doesn’t know where that ride currently exists within the national touring landscape.
“I don’t know what has happened, but it’s unfortunate because I don’t know where this goes for Josh,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t, and the landscape right now is crappy for guys like him.
“I don’t know what opportunities even exist. Pick a series, Truck, O’Reilly, or Cup. Where is there a car or a truck that is looking for a driver? I don’t know. It’s just a bad time.”
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