Josh Berry and the No. 21 eero Mustang Dark Horse capped off a strong weekend at Phoenix Raceway with a fourth-place finish in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500. It was the first top-five finish of the season for Berry and the eero team and the fourth top-five of Berry’s Cup Series career. The No. 21 team also was the top-finisher among the Ford contingent.
“I’m just really proud of everybody on the 21 team,” Berry told reporters at the track. “Obviously thank you to eero for coming on board. Our car was really solid. It wasn’t mistake-free, we had an issue with the left rear on pit road, but [crew chief] Miles [Stanley] did a great job of backing us up there and getting the wheel tight. We had some really good restarts. We had one at the end that didn’t go our way, but pretty much every one of them we were able to move forward and fight and claw. All in all, the car was really solid all weekend. Credit to Miles and everybody on the 21 team, and everybody at Ford and everybody at Wood Brothers Racing and at Team Penske. It was a lot of fun.”
Berry started Sunday’s race from fourth place and raced in the top five for most of the first Stage. He finished that 60-lap Stage in sixth place, earning five Stage points.
In Stage Two, he dropped to 29th after a pit stop during a caution period at Lap 92, but immediately regained 10 positions by steering his way through an 11-car crash just ahead of him. Once racing resumed, he continued to move forward and ended the second Stage in 10th place, earning an additional Stage point.
In the third and final segment of the race, he started off on the optional softer tire and quickly drove up to fifth place, then went back to the standard harder tire on a pit stop with 95 laps remaining. Berry dropped out of the top 10 for a bit, but was running 10th when the caution flag flew with 45 laps remaining. On the ensuing pit stop the eero team put on its second set of option tires and Berry moved up to fifth place after two laps under green and then to fourth place with 17 laps to go. Berry maintained that spot through two late-race restarts to secure the finish.
Berry and the No. 21 team now turn their focus to Las Vegas Motor Speedway and next Sunday’s Pennzoil 400.