Josh Berry led the final 16 laps Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to score his first career NASCAR Cup win 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 awesome. I love this track. Las Vegas has been so good to me. I’ve had so many great moments here.”
Berry had to overcame a loose wheel that forced him to come back to the pits at Lap 172 of the 267-lap race. That helped set the team’s strategy.
He came to pits on Lap 189 after the end of stage 2. He moved into the top 10 when others pitted during a caution at Lap 196. Berry was in a group at the front that could not make it to the end of the race on fuel but a caution at Lap 244 for Noah Gragson’s incident brought the field to pit road. Berry exited pit road second to Daniel Suarez.
Berry got by Suarez with 16 laps to go and pulled away for the victory.
“Such a battle with Daniel there at the end, beating and banging on a mile-and-a-half, crazy,” Berry said on the FS1 broadcast. “Whoever was going to get out front was probably going to win. We were able to get in front.”
Saurez finished second.
“We did everything right, you know?” Suarez said on the FS1 broadcasat. “The team did an amazing job on the strategy, pit stops. We did everything right. Our car was fast. We just struggle a little bit in the short run. I mentioned to my crew chief just a little bit ago, before the last run, I told him, ‘Hey, we want to be up front, I need a little bit better short run.’”
Ryan Preece was third, tying his career-best finish in Cup. Points leader William Byron finished fourth and Ross Chastain completed the top five, giving Chastain his fourth consecutive top 10 at the track.
Christopher Bell, seeking to become the first driver since 2007 to win four consecutive Cup points races, finished 12th.
“It was a grind today for sure,” Bell said. “I don’t really know how I feel yet, but we certainly didn’t do what we did the last couple of weeks and that was just have a nice clean race.”
Kyle Larson, who had won two of the last three races at Las Vegas, led a race-high 61 laps, won a stage and finished ninth.
Stage 1 winner: Austin Cindric
Stage 2 winner: Kyle Larson
Next: The series races at 3 p.m. ET Sunday, March 23 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on FS1.
