BRISTOL, Tenn. — Sunoco rookie Josh Berry knew the transition from the NASCAR Xfinity Series to Cup racing wasn’t going to be easy, especially since he is following 60-time winner Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
A combination of bad luck and self-inflicted wounds has relegated Berry to 31st in the standings through four races. His best result of 20th came at Las Vegas, where he finished on the lead lap for the only time this season.
“It’s been a little bit disappointing,” Berry acknowledged on Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he’ll start second in Sunday’s race (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “Even when I started this going back to last summer, people asked me all the time what my expectations were, and I always said that I expected it to be hard — and it is hard.
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“Cup racing is hard. So with that side of it, I think each race, we’ve had little-ish different things happen that maybe hurt our finish or not.”
Back-to-back pit road speeding penalties at Atlanta definitely were a setback, as was a spin during qualifying at Phoenix.
“I made a couple of mistakes over the last few weeks,” Berry said. “Spinning out in qualifying at Phoenix put us really far behind all these guys. All week, all they talk about is how you can’t pass.
“I mean, having a mistake like that puts you really far behind and makes your day look worse than it really is, so, for me, it’s just hopefully getting some of these mistakes out of the way early on and start qualifying a little bit better, and I think we’ll be fine.”