As the 2024 season rolls by, tensions rise for Stewart-Haas Racing drivers. Around two weeks have passed since team heads Tony Stewart and Gene Haas decided to shutter their 15-year-old glorious Cup team. Stewart will now focus on other racing ambitions, like Top Fuel, while Haas will focus on his F1 investments. But their soon-to-be ex-drivers are in a tight spot right now, as Josh Berry faltered at Sonoma.

Berry was not the brightest in the field; he could not maneuver his car on a road course well. That resulted in a tumbling crash on lap 35 and engaged other drivers too. Even though NASCAR fans poked fun at the incident, Berry’s tutor, Dale Earnhardt Jr, is cautious about having less time.

Numerous yellow flags waved at Sonoma Raceway, a place not known for so many wrecks. Josh Berry caused the eighth caution of the day. Running in the middle of the pack, contact from Erik Jones sent him to the inside wall. With the wall funneling down the hairpin, the No. 4 Ford Mustang had nowhere to go. So Berry collided with traffic, collecting several drivers like William Byron, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Cam Waters, and Christopher Bell.

Yet the expert road course racers wiggled their way through the mess. Even more than Kyle Larson and the others, Josh Berry needed a front-row spot considering his jittery career status. That is what Dale Earnhardt Jr emphasized recently. At first, he mentioned the hilarious metaphor some people drew from the lap-35 pile-up. “I got some text messages from some friends that said Josh Berry went bowling.”

But then Junior immediately switched to a more serious mood. Currently standing 23rd in the driver rankings with a lone top-five finish, Josh Berry needs to accelerate to land potential team spots. Talking along the same lines, Dale Jr said, “It’s unfortunate ’cause…I’ve been singing praises of Josh for a long time right? I’m a big fan of Josh…He doesn’t have all year…because teams wanna get this nailed down the next several months. We’re really halfway through the year, you’d want to be able to know who’s driving your race cars around at least through maybe the end of August.”

It is Dale Earnhardt Jr who discovered Josh Berry’s driving talents and inducted Berry into JR Motorsports’ Late Model program, where the latter scored some glittering wins. Owning 21 wins in the Cars Late Model Stock Tour and 5 Xfinity trophies, Berry seemed primed for a Cup career. But his rookie year did not look promising, so Dale Earnhardt Jr stressed the need to focus. “Every race is a try-out or a job interview for all of these drivers. So Josh maybe didn’t do himself any favors with that.”

As Berry is not known for his road-course talents, Dale Earnhardt Jr offered some golden advice for his pupil.

The will to survive is important

Some of the stellar road-course racers include Kyle Larson, with five victories, and Tyler Reddick, with three. But Josh Berry is yet to punch his ticket into their midst. He was already known for his poor performance on the 1.99-mile road course. In last year’s Sonoma Xfinity race, he started 19th and finished a meager 33rd. This year at COTA, Berry started 31st and finished 35th. Thus, the Cup rookie needs to step up his game.

And Dale Earnhardt Jr advised the need to hold your ground against rowdy drivers like Ross Chastain. “You cannot take it easy at Sonoma. You have to grind every freaking corner. But there are guys out there that are gonna divebomb…like Ross. They’re gonna put you in bad situations in all of those moments. You have to realize that you’ve gotta live to get out of the corner.”

As his former tutor is worried, hopefully, Josh Berry will revamp his racing strategies to come out with good finishes soon.