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Josh Berry secured his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday (March 16). After taking the checkered flag, he chose to forgo the traditional burnout in his postrace celebration in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the race, he revealed the reason behind skipping the burnout.
In the postrace interview, Josh Berry revealed he avoided the burnout because he was influenced by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s 2014 Daytona 500 celebration, where Dale Jr. took time to acknowledge the fans rather than destroy his car. In addition, he also skipped because of his background in short-track racing, where drivers couldn’t afford to damage their cars after races.
Explaining why he skipped traditional burnout after his Las Vegas win, here’s what Berry said (via Steven Taranto's X):
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“There’s a couple reasons. For one, over the course of the off-season, I found myself watching the 2014 Daytona 500 when Dale won. He went down to one and kind of swung around, took his stuff off, waved at the fans. I think back of Saturday night short-track racing, we wouldn’t have that type of celebration because you couldn’t blow the quarter panels up, blow the motor, tear the car to hell after the race.”
Josh Berry, who has spent his life working on and building race cars, knows the value of preserving them.
The Wood Brothers Racing driver continued:
“That’s just what I wanted to do. Kind of who I am. I did a little bit of one there at the end there, just kind of spun around a couple times. That’s just who I am as a person. I’ve spent my whole life working on my own race cars, building race cars, got my ass chewed a couple times for doing burnouts when I shouldn’t and tore stuff up. I just want to soak in the moment.”
A look at Dale Earnhardt Jr. inspired-Josh Berry's stint at JR Motorsports
The 34-year-old Berry’s tribute to his former boss Dale Jr. makes sense because he competed for JR Motorsports in two Xfinity Series seasons before stepping into NASCAR’s top-tier series. He was associated with Dale Jr.’s team in 2022 and 2023.
During his tenure with JRM, Josh Berry secured three wins and multiple top-five finishes. He finished fourth and 11th in the 2022 and 2023 Xfinity Series standings, respectively.
Josh Berry passed Daniel Suarez with 16 laps to go and held on to the lead to score the first win of the season for Wood Brothers Racing.
