Josh Berry recently won his first-ever NASCAR Cup race in his second full-time season in the Series. While he has continuously shown speed, time and again, having finished two races in the top 5 in his debut full-time season last year, after ending his Phoenix race in P4 this season, he made sure to bag the trophy this time at Las Vegas. But his celebration was kind of old-school.
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Instead of doing the trendy burnout for the crowd, he made a Polish victory lap — rekindled by Chase Elliott last year after his win at Texas — to signify his hard work throughout the years, which is giving him results now.
The reason he gave for doing the Polish Victory lap during his post-race press conference was: “Over the course of the off-season I found myself watching the 2014 Daytona 500 when Dale won, and he went down to one and kind of swung around and took his stuff off and waved at the fans…”
“That’s just what I wanted to do, right? Like, I don’t know. I just kind of who I am. I wanted to enjoy it. I didn’t care how long it took,” he added.
He elaborated, stating that he simply wanted to go down there and turn around backward and just have a moment to reflect on that. It’s such a huge accomplishment to win in the Cup Series.
Josh Berry was asked why he chose not to do a burnout celebrating his first Cup win. Gave a couple reasons, saying he was inspired by @DaleJr ‘s celebration after the 2014 Daytona 500 as well as his roots on short tracks and wanting to savor the moment.
“I wanted to enjoy it. I… pic.twitter.com/7Z4xSSnz4a
— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) March 17, 2025
Josh Berry spent much of his career content as a journeyman racer who probably would never make it beyond the local short-track scene, having started with an online sim racing league called DMP Online Racing in 2008 [during which he met Dale Jr. and their friendship began] to running in Dale Jr.’s Late Model Racing after two years.
He rose above and won a total of 21 races and bagged the 2017 CARS Late Model Stock Tour Championship. Besides winning a championship himself, Berry also served as a crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the CARS Tour Window World 125 late model race at North Wilkesboro Speedway back in 2022.
But when he got a big break in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving JR Motorsports car, he made the most of it by winning five Xfinity Series races for the team that led to a shot in the Cup Series, to drive the #9 HMS car in the absence of Chase Elliott and bagged a top-5, in his fourth race of the season.
His recent win was not only special for the Wood Brothers Racing team that proved their decision to hire Berry was correct, but it also elevated the ranks of the #21 driver.
While Harrison Burton had previously won for the team at Daytona this past summer, Berry’s victory at Las Vegas marked the first non-superspeedway win for the team since Ryan Blaney’s success at Pocono in 2017.
At Las Vegas, Berry ran down Daniel Suarez following a restart with 19 laps remaining to take control and eventually win the race. He currently ranks at P13 in the standings table, 88 points behind the leader, William Byron. However, with the victory, he has already locked himself into the playoffs.
