HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Ryan Blaney has pumped the brakes on his working relationship with Josh Berry.
Berry, driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, was penalized 25 driver points and fined $50,000 by NASCAR officials on Tuesday for brake-checking Blaney during last week’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
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During the Xfinity 500, Berry appeared frustrated by slight contact from behind by Blaney through Turns 3 and 4 and on corner exit spiked the brake pedal, leading Blaney directly into Berry’s back bumper and causing significant damage to Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford to send Blaney to the garage for extended repairs.
The circumstances would be frustrating enough between any two competitors. But for at least one more race weekend, Berry is a quasi-teammate of Blaney’s, as the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing entry operates as a Team Penske affiliate. After Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Berry departs the Wood Brothers — and Ford — for Legacy Motor Club, where he’ll drive the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota.
“It was very surprising,” Blaney said Friday after Cup practice at Homestead. “You know, especially the circumstances that it was kind of incidental contact really that he and I had there in the middle of the corner. It was pretty light. So yeah, I mean that surprised me. But you know, he made that decision, and that is what it is. But yeah, being a affiliate and teammate, he and I had a good relationship. I was pretty surprised at that.”
Blaney shared he and Berry spoke by phone earlier this week and had a “good conversation” about the incident. But Blaney also believes the relationship between them isn’t exactly the same after an incident like this.
“Yeah, I think it changes a little bit,” Blaney said. “It’s not on fire, but it’s not rainbows and sunshine.“
Blaney entered Martinsville a distant 107 points back of series leader Kyle Larson in The Chase presented by Mobil 1, but the 2023 Cup champion was still mathematically eligible for the championship. Instead, he left the penultimate race of the season with a 35th-place finish, 59 laps down after his stay in the garage, completely eliminating his title hopes and sinking him to seventh in points, 133 points out.
A three-time winner in 2026, Blaney specified he had no input with NASCAR in any penalty recommendations, but he was in favor of where the sport’s officials landed in Tuesday’s penalty report.
“Personally, I feel like that’s the right call that NASCAR did with just trying to set a precedent of ‘hey, this is not OK,’ and they did that,” Blaney said. “Moving forward.”
This story will be updated.