Vegas winner Josh Berry’s boss airs ‘frustration’ on Penske pact: “When we suck, it’s our fault, but when we do good, we had nothing to do with it”

NASCAR Cup Series driver Josh Berry got Wood Brothers Racing their 101st premier series win on Sunday (March 16) in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was also Berry’s first win of his Cup career, making him the 206th different driver to win a Cup Series race.

Wood Brothers Racing has a technical alliance with Team Penske that allows them to use their facilities and capitalize on their expertise. As WBR runs stronger in 2025, some people would say that it’s all thanks to the alliance.

This frustrates Jon Wood, co-owner of Wood Brothers Racing. The part that particularly bugs him is that whenever the organization has a bad day, they are the ones to take the blame, but when the team manages to put up a good show, people credit Team Penske for it.

“When we suck, it's our fault. But when we do good, we had nothing to do with it. It's 100% Penske or something,” Wood explained (via Speedway Digest). “I think that's a frustrating part. These are our guys that are doing this.”

“We sat in a room and debated who our next driver would be for 2025. It's Josh Berry. Those are decisions that we made collectively. It's our race team and our decision,” he added.

Josh Berry spent the 2024 season driving the No. 4 car for the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, finishing 27th on points. This year, Berry replaced Harrison Burton behind the wheel of the No. 21, marking his debut season with Wood Brothers Racing in the Cup Series.

Next up for Berry is the Straight Talk wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The 267-lap race has been scheduled for March 23 and will be televised on Fox Sports 1 from 3 pm ET onwards.

Josh Berry ends Christopher Bell’s winning steak

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was looking forward to logging a four-peat, after winning three consecutive races over the last three weeks. However, Josh Berry’s victory at Las Vegas ended Bell’s winning streak.

It also denied Bell the opportunity to tie with legendary Hall of Fame drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., all of whom have four-peats to their names.

“I knew we were going to lose at some point," Bell said during a post-race interview (via Bob Pockrass, FOX Sports). “You're not going to win them all. But just the execution was not good on all fronts.”

“The last three weeks, we did really well and it won us three races. And then today, it just didn't go our way,” he added.

Bell finished 12th, picking 26 points on the way. He will be joined by Josh Berry in the playoffs. Notably, Berry is the only driver from the Ford camp to make the postseason this season.