Josh Berry sends Wood Brothers to Nascar Victory Lane with Las Vegas Win

Josh Berry led the last 16 rounds on Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday to achieve his first career victory in the Nascar Cup and give the Wood Brothers their 101st series win.

“I don’t even know what to think,” Berry told FS1 after just his fifth start with the Wood Brothers. “Just wonderful. I love this cut. Las Vegas was so good to me. I had so many wonderful moments here. ‘

Josh Berry achieved his first career victory and gave the Wood Brothers their 101st in the series.

Berry had to conquer a loose wheel that forced him to return to the pits on lap 172 of the 267 round race. This contributed to setting up the team’s strategy.

He came to the end of phase 2 on lap 189. He moved to the top -10 when others placed on the round during a caution. Berry was in a group on the front that could not make it on fuel at the end of the race, but a warning on the lap 244 for Noah Gragson’s incident brought the field to Putpad. Berry left Pit Road second to Daniel Suarez.

Berry came through Suarez with 16 laps to go and pull away for the win.

“Such a battle with Daniel there at the end, knocks and knocks on a mile and a half, crazy,” Berry said on the FS1 broadcast. “Whoever would come from the front would probably win. We could come up. “

Already know second.

“We did everything right, do you know?” Suarez said on the FS1 broadcaster. ‘The team has done an incredible job on the strategy, pit stops. We did everything right. Our car was fast. We are just struggling a little in the short term. I mentioned to my crew head just a little ago, before the last innings, I said to him, “Hey, we want to be ahead, I need a little better short term.” ‘

Ryan Preece was third and tied his best finish in the cup. Points -leader William Byron finished fourth and Ross Chastain completed the top five, giving Chastain its fourth consecutive top 10 on the track.

Christopher Bell, who has been trying to become the first driver since 2007 to win four consecutive cups of races, finished 12th place.

“It was a grind today,” Bell said. “I don’t really know how I feel, but we certainly haven’t done what we did over the past few weeks, and it was just a nice clean race.”

Kyle Larson, who won two of the last three races in Las Vegas, led a 61 rounds, won a stage and finished ninth.

Phase 1 winner: Austin Cindric

Phase 2 winner: Kyle Larson

Following: The series rushes at 3pm on Sunday, March 23 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on FS1.