Already an underdog in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Playoffs, the last thing Josh Berry needed was a crash on the opening lap of the Southern 500. Berry started third with an impressive qualifying effort, but after losing control in the very first corner of the race, he finished 38th, almost 130 laps down.
He left Darlington with just two points -- one for the finishing position and another for securing the fastest lap bonus after returning to the track.
We’re off to a chaotic start to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs at Darlington!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 31, 2025
📺: USA pic.twitter.com/fMemPH7i70
But even hours after the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford snapped around on him, Berry seemed unsure about why the car was bottoming out so violently.
"It bottomed out like five or six times, so I don't know," he told Motorsport.com. "I saw a video of it from the No. 1 car [Ross Chastain, who started directly behind Berry] while they were fixing it. You could see it throwing up smoke, so not really sure what happened there -- if we missed something, but you just can't drive these things when they're hitting the track that hard. Especially the first lap when you're not expecting it."
This was Berry's worst finish since the fall race at Kansas one year ago, when he got hooked on the opening lap of the race by the No. 21 car he now drives.
He is now 19 points below the cutline heading to Gateway, and said of his current predicament: "It’s just disappointing. It looked like a lot of people had a bad night, which we know how this goes. We just need to avoid a bad night. I obviously haven’t seen it yet, but I feel like we’re still within striking distance that if we just go have two good weeks, we’ll at least be in the mix once we get to Bristol.”
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