Josh Berry may be glad to have made it to the Cup Series, but he is not the “happy-to-be-here” type. By his own admission, he is one of the most competitive drivers in the garage and wants to win every race he enters. In only his second full-time Cup season, he already has a victory at Las Vegas in the regular season and a playoff berth. Still, even with those milestones, he carries one memory that will never leave him.
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During the 12 Questions segment with Jeff Gluck, Berry was asked about a time in his life that tested him, but one he was proud to overcome. He said, “I don’t really talk about this a whole lot, but I lost my mother unexpectedly when I was 12 years old. For lack of a better term, I just woke up to it, that traumatic of an experience.”
He recalled how quickly he had to grow up. With his father working, Berry was left on his own much of the time, forced to handle his laundry, cook meals, and manage school. Looking back, he knows how easily he could have veered off course, but he takes pride in the way he weathered it.
Even now, the pain lingers. “You never recover from it, and it never changes. I hate to say it makes you a better person, because that’s still a loss. But it puts tough days at the racetrack in perspective, and I’m thankful for that,” he said.
How Berry channeled the pain of his loss
Gluck acknowledged how he is always struck by people who have suffered a loss when they’re young and were able to avoid going down a bad path. For Berry, racing became his outlet.
Though he briefly stepped away, the 34-year-old returned to the track at Nashville Fairgrounds, first in a small four-cylinder car and then in a Legend car. Spending time in the garage working on his race car gave the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing driver focus and kept him out of trouble.
He may not have known where the road would lead, but through persistence and grit, Josh Berry steered himself to where he stands today. For that, he can be absolutely proud of himself.
