It’s probably not the most public relations version of a story told countess times on Wednesday afternoon, but Josh Berry might owe one-time rival Bobby McCarty a thank you card for playing a small but potentially pivotal role in his ascension to the NASCAR Cup Series.
First, it’s undeniable to this point that Berry should have long been racing in NASCAR, at one of the three national tours long before it actually happened with any regularity. To this point, he absolutely should have had a partner who supported it much sooner than it actually did.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. more than did his part following an Xfinity Series race at Richmond in 2015 where he implored potential sponsors and team owners to give Berry a full-time shot. That plea fell on deaf ears and Earnhardt kept Berry employed as a driver and program manager of the Late Model Stock program at JR Motorsports.
This leads to June 6 2020, in the early days of the pandemic and the first CARS Tour race to come back from the nationwide shutdown, an event that took place at Ace Speedway in Altamahaw, North Carolina. That race famously featured the culmination of a years long simmering rivalry between Berry and McCarty, who together were the undisputed faces of the CARS Tour in its earliest seasons.
Berry, having felt wronged by McCarty across several points of the previous two years and again at Ace that night, took matters into his own hands and intentionally crashed his rival from the lead in the final laps. Berry had himself been crashed by McCarty earlier that night and limped his car around the track long enough to find McCarty and take him out.
McCarty had arguably wronged several of his peers over the previous two seasons, and several crew members even thanked Berry for what he had done after the race, but CARS Tour president Jack McNelly had to act.
Berry would be suspended for the next race at Hickory Motor Speedway.
By this point, Berry had actually already started racing for NASCAR Weekly Series points at Hickory before the CARS Tour season resumed at Ace and continued racing at the Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars during his suspension.
He was leading the points, and by extension, was the early Weekly Series points leader too.
Unable to win the CARS Tour championship, Berry and Earnhardt made the decision to chase NASCAR points and were ultimately rewarded with the championship. For whatever reason, the spotlight or NASCAR marketing campaign, Earnhardt was able to turn that accomplishment into a partial Xfinity Serie schedule that next year.
Even the timing worked out because Sam Mayer was just 17 years old, and the newly signed Xfinity Series driver wasn’t eligible to race all the tracks until his next birthday, which opened the door for Berry to fill remaining dates.
He went on to win two races that year, one in the No. 8 at Martinsville, and another in the No. 1 at Las Vegas once he started filling in for the injured Michael Annett.
Earnhardt isn’t sure the suspension directly changed the course of history but concedes that there were a lot of little steps that led to his hiring by Stewart-Haas Racing to take over the No. 4 car from Kevin Harvick next season.
“Yeah, I guess,” Earnhardt said. “Or it might have started with racing CARS Tour in general or just trying to win the track championship at Hickory. There were so many dominoes that needed to fall.
“Winning at Martinsville is the biggest one for me because he doesn’t go Xfinity racing if he doesn’t win the national championship and that national championship gave us the confidence to say, ‘let’s just do it and let’s just buy into this.’ We decided to buy the stock and hopefully it goes up.”
It did.
“A lot of this is timing right,” Earnhardt added. “Like this thing with Kevin deciding that this is his last year and this ride opening up with Rodney being the crew chief.
“There is a lot of timing in this whole deal.”
But maybe, after all these years, McCarty deserves some kind of thank you card.
“I try not to think about my journey that way,” Berry said. “But my friends remind me pretty often that I owe Bobby something like chocolate or flowers or something.
“It was just a crazy scenario that led to that and created a snowball effect. You never know, because if we don’t win all those races and the championship, was that enough to move the needle for Dale to get me in the Xfinity car? We’ll never know.”
But again, it’s not like Berry was suddenly more NASCAR ready at 30-years-old with a Weekly Series championship than he was with a CARS Tour and two track championships at 26.
Why did that moment move the needle more than even Earnhardt’s plea to the industry in 2015.
“A couple of things: I think Dale had a tremendous amount of respect for that run that we went on and what it took for us to win that championship,” Berry said. “He regarded that as one of the most coveted championships that there was to win.
“I remember calling him and telling, internally, that we felt that this was an option and that we should go do it. He was like, ‘yeah, let’s give it a shot, and he was immediately invested. We had great communication that year and supported my decision to go race at Hickory on Saturday and then Kenly on Sunday — driving back and forth, swapping cars and trailers — whatever it took to win those 28 out of 38 races.
“The timing was part of it too, with Sam turning 18 in June and leaving a lot of that open, and I’m just so grateful for everything that went into getting us here.”
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