| Josh Berry and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Mustang Dark Horse will start Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway from 29th place. Berry, who earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory at the track earlier this season, posted a lap of 180.548 miles per hour in Saturday’s qualifying session. In practice before qualifying, Berry ranked 34th on the speed chart with a best lap of 176.390 mph on his fourth of 35 laps. Among drivers who ran 10 consecutive laps, he was 28th best with an average speed of 175.292 mph from Laps 2–11. Berry told reporters at Las Vegas that he and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team are working hard to end the season on a high note. “We’re just going each and every week and trying to perform the best we can,” he said. “We obviously want to do what we can to learn about our cars and help Ryan and Joey as much as we can through these last few races. “But for us we just want to string together some solid runs and finish the season strong. The guys have been doing a really good job, and we’re just trying to build some momentum for next year.” Berry also said conditions have changed since he won at Las Vegas in March. “We’re on a different tire that we ran at Kansas and a couple of times before that,” he said. “So it’s a little bit different tire, so we’re trying to take what we learned there and apply that to here the best we can. “Obviously the weather is different too, but I would say it’s fairly similar, but we’ve tried to adjust for the tire and the weather and hopefully get it right.” Sunday’s 267-lap, 400.5-mile race is scheduled to take the green flag just after 5:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. Stage breaks are planned for Laps 80 and 165. |
