NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 13, 2026

Josh Berry

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We've now been joined by Josh Berry, who was the fastest Ford in that practice this afternoon. Josh, thank you for joining us.

Q. When you're the fastest of your manufacturer, do you feel like people will follow you, friend you, pay more attention to you, they know you're the fastest, that that matters in the scheme of things?

JOSH BERRY: I'm not quite sure for practice. Obviously we're all in a pack. It just kind of depends sometimes how the timing works out. It's definitely not a bad thing I feel like to show you have some speed.

We were in front, I think, when we ran that lap, they said. I feel good about my car. I honestly feel really good about my car. I felt good about it last night. Hopefully it's time for a good race on Sunday.

Q. Talk about your practice after the Duels. There was a lot of conversations that the cars were squirrelly, the pushing was squirrelly. Did you notice that, and what do you feel like you saw in the practice session from behind the wheel?

JOSH BERRY: Yeah, I mean, for us, it's been a pretty solid weekend, really. I know we didn't quite get up to the front until the end of the duel. Just did the fuel savings and strategy of how it all worked out.

I honestly felt really good about my car making kind of that charge to the front at the end that we were able to do to get to sixth. Just kind of have been searching for balance here, really ever since the July race in the 4 car when I had the flip.

I felt like I had a really good balance that night and kind of been searching for that in the 21 and feel like I'm close, and was really happy with my car yesterday, and in that practice, same thing.

Hopefully that translates to Sunday.

Q. Josh, this practice started at a time that you would think would more simulate what you're going to experience on Sunday, at least towards the end of Sunday's race. Does that matter at all? Is there anything that you learned differently today versus yesterday when it was cool and at night?

JOSH BERRY: I mean, I think obviously it's going to -- obviously the conditions are closer to what we'll have at the end of the race. It was pretty cool last night.

I think even for us, that was kind of our last check-off, I guess, was were we strong or did we feel comfortable with the car because it was cooler. We wanted to check a little warmer temperatures. Obviously that added up. Obviously we'll start during the day and the track will change a little bit through the night.

Yeah, overall we've been pretty happy all weekend, really.

Q. It seems like -- I think there's 11 Fords out there. You guys might be at a disadvantage. Do you feel that out there, because you guys have quality over quantity, that it won't make as much of a difference?

JOSH BERRY: Yeah, I mean, I think at times, obviously my duel race was only a couple of us Fords, which can make it tough at times. But ultimately I felt like it kind of -- attrition and things throughout the race kind of evened the playing field from that standpoint. There's always the possibility that you could have a lot of one manufacturer and less of others, just depending on how the accidents fall or people make mistakes and get a lap down or something like that.

I think towards the end, it'll probably sort itself out.