Josh Berry’s hopes to somehow pull off a miracle and advance to the next round of the NASCAR Cup playoffs literally went up in smoke after just 78 laps into Saturday night’s annual summer night race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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Berry didn’t even get through the first stage of the final race of the Round of 16 before his car caught fire, and he was barely able to get it into the pits.
The driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford knew he’d need a Hail Mary to advance, coming into the race 45 points below the cutoff line. But it turned out he ultimately cursed his bad luck.
“Maybe seven or eight laps before we come on pit road, we started getting some smoke in the cockpit,” Berry said. “And then the longer I went, the darker the smoke got, and then obviously by the time we got on pit road, it was completely black smoke. So yeah, obviously something caught on fire. The car just burned up.”
There's a problem for @joshberry!
He exits the No. 21 under his own power on Lap 80. #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/hGUCz0wjTO
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 14, 2025
Although some reports indicated Berry’s firesuit was smoking when he exited his stopped car, he discounted that, even though when he managed to finally escape the car and sit on pit road, he went into a significant coughing spell because of all the smoke he had inhaled.
“I don’t think the fire made it inside the cockpit,” Berry said. “It was just a lot of smoke. It seemed like the fire stayed uh in the fender well there, which is a good thing, obviously, but man, disappointing again. We had a car that was really good, that was going to fall right in our wheelhouse, I feel like, to have a really good night. This one’s going to be hard to watch.”
Berry became the first driver to be eliminated from the playoffs, with three more set to miss the cut by the time the checkered flag falls at the end of the 500 scheduled laps.
