NASCAR at Las Vegas results: Josh Berry gets first Cup Series win in victory No. 101 for Wood Brothers Racing

Berry joins a select fraternity of drivers who have won for NASCAR's oldest race team

By Steven Taranto

Mar 16, 2025 at 7:56 pm ET • 4 min read

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Only a few short years after going from the short tracks of the southeast to earning his big break in NASCAR, Josh Berry earned his first NASCAR Cup Series victory in Sunday's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Berry prevailed in a side-by-side battle with Daniel Suarez on the final restart and then drove away over the final dozen laps to earn his first Cup win and win No. 101 for Wood Brothers Racing.

After a caution for a crash by Noah Gragson with 24 laps to go took fuel strategy out of the equation, Berry was pitted in a duel with Daniel Suarez for the lead and the win on a restart with 19 laps to go. Although a push from Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain allowed Suarez to get clear to the lead at first, Berry drove Suarez back down and took the two side-by-side for multiple laps -- trading paint on at least one occasion -- until Berry finally put his No. 21 Ford out front for good with 14 laps to go. Berry would then drive away, taking the checkered flag by 1.3 seconds over Suarez's No. 99.

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Steven Taranto

The win marks a culmination of Berry's rags-to-riches story, as the Hendersonville, Tenn. native went from mostly a regional racer and the 2020 NASCAR Weekly Series champion to a full-time Cup driver by 2024 after winning multiple times in a part-time opportunity to drive for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Xfinity Series team in 2021. His first win comes in his 53rd career start at NASCAR's top level, and in just his fifth start after landing with the Wood Brothers following Stewart-Haas Racing's closure at the end of the 2024 season.

"I don't even know what to think. Just awesome," Berry told Fox Sports. "... (Crew chief Miles Stanley) and this whole 21 team, everybody at Wood Brothers Racing, they gave me a great car today. And we just battled and battled and battled and it was our day. I just can't believe it.

"Such a battle with Daniel there at the end. Beating and banging at a mile-and-a-half is crazy. But whoever was gonna get out front was probably gonna win, and we were able to get in front of him."

Berry's victory signals what could be a renaissance for Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest active team in NASCAR that is now celebrating its 75th anniversary season. After earning their milestone 100th win with Harrison Burton last August at Daytona, Berry's victory now gives the Wood Brothers victories in consecutive seasons for the first time since Kyle Petty won for the team in both 1986 and 1987.

The 15 races that passed between Burton and Berry's victories also marks the shortest stretch between wins for the program since the early 1980s, when just 12 races passed between victories for Neil Bonnett between Atlanta in November 1981 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte the next May. Berry also becomes the first champion of the NASCAR Weekly Series to win a Cup race, as the best Cup finish for any champion of that division had long been held by fellow Middle Tennessee native Mike Alexander -- a third at Atlanta in 1988 -- prior to Berry's arrival in Cup.

JOSH BERRY AND WOOD BROTHERS RACING WIN IN LAS VEGAS! #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/Doz1oRV28t
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 16, 2025

Suarez went on to finish second, followed by Ryan Preece -- Berry's former teammate at Stewart-Haas -- who tied his best career finish in Cup by running third in just his fifth start for RFK Racing. William Byron and Ross Chastain rounded out the top five, followed by Austin Cindric, Alex Bowman, A.J. Allmendinger, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott to complete the top 10.

Christopher Bell came up short in his chance to win four races in a row and four of the first five, as a pit road miscue combined with a car that did not handle to his liking limited him to a 12th-place finish. Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano also left Las Vegas wondering what could have been, as he had been leading prior to the final caution before finishing 15th after a slow final pit stop dropped him well outside the top 10.

Logano's run continues what has become a tough start to the season for him, as he has become the first reigning Cup Series champion to not record a single top-10 finish in the first five races of the season.