NEWTON, Iowa — In the sport of NASCAR, one race can impact a driver’s entire career. One wrong move or one gutsy pass that results in a win can change the path of a racing hopeful.
Josh Berry learned that last year.
Driving the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, Berry’s seventh-place finish at Richmond International Raceway in September shifted the spotlight quickly upon the young racer’s shoulders, drawing praise from team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. and attention from the media.
It wasn’t Victory Lane — but for a young short track racer from Tennessee with three sporadic XFINITY starts to his name, it was pretty close.
“That race at Richmond last year, I still can’t believe how well it went,” Berry recalled on Friday at Iowa Speedway to NASCAR.com. “I can’t believe how well the race went, I can’t believe how much attention I got, I can’t believe how everything went.
“… I think all the time how if a couple things would have went a little bit better, how that would have changed the path of my career from right that moment. We had a legitimate shot to win that race. I think if we had won that race, I might be in the series full-time.”
RELATED: Berry makes strong impression at Richmond
Currently a successful Late Model racer for JR Motorsports with two 2016 wins, Berry will be making his first XFINITY Series start of the season this weekend driving the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet at Iowa Speedway in Saturday night’s US Cellular 250 (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Just like last year at Richmond, the 250-mile race will serve as an audition stage for the 25-year-old racer, who is still looking for a more expansive part-time ride or full-time deal in the XFINITY Series.
“My whole career has been kind of race-to-race, you know?” Berry said. “I’ve never really had a lot of security. So for me, every race is like your last one. For me it’s a huge opportunity to get in a very competitive car and show that I can do the job … I know that people are paying attention to how well I run and I don’t want to let them down.”
He certainly won over bossman Dale Jr., who said after Richmond last year that with his talent, Berry was “one sponsorship away from being able to make a living as a race car driver.” Many speculated Berry would drive for JR Motorsports full-time in 2016. Junior himself even campaigned for a sponsor for the talented Berry.
But in a world where sponsorship calls the shots, talent doesn’t always pave the path to your name above the car door every weekend.
“It’s tough when you see somebody as huge as Dale Jr. is, to stick his neck out there and say, ‘hey, this is my guy, let’s find something for him,’ ” Berry said. “And it didn’t materialize. Obviously I didn’t really get my hopes up, but I really thought that … somebody would sit there and say, ‘that means something,’ We worked hard — everyone at JR Motorsports worked hard, I worked hard to try to find something, but we just couldn’t get (it).
“… It’s just tough to get the opportunities — you never know in this sport. There’s so many people that have gotten opportunities come about real quickly,” Berry said with a slight chuckle. “So, I don’t know. Every time I think I’m getting closer, sometimes you get pushed back down the stairs a little bit. But we just got to keep working at it, keep running well, especially in that Late Model … and then when I get these opportunities, (try) to make the most of them.”
While his XFINITY career in 2016 hasn’t been as extensive as he hoped, Berry is set to make another start in September for JRM at Kentucky Speedway. The time away from the series also gave Berry ample time to prepare for this weekend.
“(I’ve been able to) watch film and really study the track,” Berry said. “Went and did pit stop practice — had time to do that over the past couple weeks, which that’s something that I’m still learning.
“…But it takes laps, a couple laps to get going, that’s the thing. The car brakes differently, it accelerates differently from what I’m used to. So, really it just takes laps to get back in the feel of how the tires feel and obviously going faster at a different track and everything.”
The audition stage will be tough and pressure-filled for Berry on Saturday night in the Hawkeye State. But Berry is confident behind the wheel — and will look to impress under the bright lights, no matter who is watching.
“To see how that race (at Richmond) went and to see the publicity we got … it makes it possible knowing we could go do that here — it’s no doubt,” Berry said.
“There’s a couple things that I realized I needed to improve on and there were some things that were kind of out of my control … so for me, I just try to take what I knew I did wrong and try to make myself better for these few races this year.”
“Hopefully if everything else can go the same and I do a better job, we’ll be that much closer to getting a win.”