“Crawl Before You Can Walk”- Championship Winning Crew Chief Backs Tony Stewart’s Rookie As Cup Series Job Hunt Continues

Tony Stewart led Stewart-Haas Racing will cease to exist at the end of the season, leaving its four drivers fighting for their futures. Among them is Josh Berry, who only just joined the team this year, and is still going to be a free agent after 2024.

Let’s not forget that in the past 2-3 years, Stewart-Haas Racing has been suffering from diminished pace. The only saving grace was when Kevin Harvick reached the Playoffs last year in his farewell season. Before that, Chase Briscoe and Harvick took three wins in 2022.

During Sunday’s race at the Iowa Speedway, Berry put up an impressive performance with a 7th place finish. Crew chief Rodney Childers speaking after the race talked about the situation saying, “Everything about the race went the way that we wanted  it to. Had a fast car, Josh did a great job, restarts were good. We checked a lot of boxes today. You got to crawl before you can run, crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run. We’ve started to do that. I know the last two weeks didn’t really show that. If you look before that, we’ve got better and better every week. Had good runs and feel good about what we’re doing.”

Childers further praised his team for focusing on the races instead of dwelling on the decision to leave, and how it could have been easy to just fall apart after the announcement and drop the ball. “A lot of adversity on top of that, so it’s interesting looking for a job all week and still coming and running like this. That’s just the icing on the cake, honestly.”

Berry showed most of his rivals, just what the #4 car is capable of achieving. He acknowledged that the 33-year-old rookie worked incredibly hard to get where he is now. Frankly, he would be really surprised if Josh Berry didn’t get his dues. The Iowa Speedway has now become one of the driver’s favorite stomping grounds, along with Darlington and Richmond. Furthermore, his short track prowess has been impressive, but intermediate track racing needs improvement.

What lies ahead for the Tony Stewart backed rookie driver?

The truth is, it would be a shame to see such talent go to waste. So one can only hope that Berry’s efforts somehow land him a permanent starting spot in another team. The same will apply for Chase Briscoe, Ryan Preece and Noah Gragson, who are also job-hunting. Fortunately, SHR’s departure leaves four free charters ripe for the picking. Safe to say, a number of teams will descend like a pack of blood-thirsty wolves to buy a charter.

What we would love to know is, will it be a ‘buy a charter, get a driver free’ kind of offer? There are organisations like Front Row Motorsports, Trackhouse Racing, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, and many more. The fact that Martin Truex Jr is also retiring at the end of the season, has also blown the NASCAR driver market wide open. Though, would it be a stretch to think that one of the current Tony Stewart backed drivers could join Joe Gibbs Racing?