● The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series heads to the penultimate race of the regular season at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway this weekend, Saturday night’s annual Coke Zero 400. Josh Berry, driver of the No. 4 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing, hits town 23rd in the driver standings, 99 points under the top-16 playoff cutline. With a scant mathematical possibility of earning a playoff berth on points, the 33-year-old Berry’s more realistic chance of securing a berth is a victory at Daytona, or at the regular-season finale Sept. 1 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Berry is currently second in the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings, 14 markers behind leader Carson Hocevar.
● Berry took on the high-banked 2.5-mile Daytona oval in February for his first Daytona 500 to kick off his first fulltime season in NASCAR’s premier series. He ran competitively and led his first lap behind the wheel of the No. 4 Ford Mustang. Berry’s bid came undone, however, when he was spun on pit road during a green-flag pit stop on lap 112, the subsequent lengthy stop causing him to lose the draft. He finished 25th.
● In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Berry has 10 superspeedway starts at Daytona and its sister track Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, notching one top-five and two top-10s in those 10 starts. Berry’s best Xfinity Series superspeedway finish of fifth came in October 2022 at Talladega in the No. 8 JR Motorsports entry. In that event, Berry qualified seventh and finished the second stage in 10th.
● Saturday night’s race under the lights at Daytona marks crew chief Rodney Childers’ 38th attempt to chase a win at the “World Center of Racing” that has eluded him in his illustrious career. In his previous 37 Daytona starts as the shot-caller in the Cup Series, Childers’ drivers have earned eight top-five finishes, 12 top-10s, and one pole award by former Stewart-Haas driver Kevin Harvick in August 2020.
● Joining Berry this weekend at Daytona is eero. Known for award-winning hardware and software that continues to create connectivity solutions for individuals, businesses, communities and service providers, eero is the primary partner for Berry and the No. 4 Stewart-Haas team in the Coke Zero Sugar 400. With wifi being integral to everyone’s day-to-day lives, eero ensures that it’s fast, reliable and secure. Specifically, eero pioneered mesh wifi because it realized many of the problems we face, like buffering or weak coverage, could be solved by using multiple access points working as a mesh network as opposed to using a single router. Now, a decade later, there are tens of millions of eero devices around the world delivering wifi the way it should be – simple, reliable and blazing fast. Hence, eero’s place on Berry’s No. 4 Ford Mustang at Daytona. And just as in racing, eero continues to innovate and push the limits of what’s possible in the world of connectivity. eero Max 7 is its fastest, most powerful system yet, delivering wired speeds up to 9.4 Gbps. eero Built-in turns Echo devices into wifi extenders to quickly and easily add more coverage. eero Internet Backup enables customers to keep their wifi up and running when the wired connection goes down by switching the network to a wireless connection. eero for Business and eero for Communities are powerful, intuitive software solutions that allow business owners and multi-unit buildings to offer great wifi without needing to be a networking expert. eero’s advanced security tools provided with its premium service, eero Plus, makes it simple to help customers stay safe online. eero products continue to get better over time with automatic software updates for the latest security patches and feature upgrades. Customers can manage their network in the eero app and rest easy knowing they can reach out to eero’s world-class support team seven days a week. To learn more, please visit eero.com.
Josh Berry, Driver of the No. 4 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse
As you head back to Daytona this weekend and reflecting on the year you’ve had, how do you view your and the team’s progress since your debut with the team at this year’s Daytona 500? And what have you learned in your first fulltime regular season in the Cup Series?
“It’s been a very up-and-down season, to say the least. Going back there this weekend, I feel much more confident in the NexGen car in general, and having seat time at a couple of the drafting-style tracks helps just get me in those scenarios that you can’t always get in a simulator or in practice. But overall, I am just excited for another opportunity to punch my ticket into the playoffs this weekend and that would make my season better than I feel now.”
What have you learned in the other superspeedway-style races this season that you can apply to Saturday’s race at Daytona?
“I think learning how the car reacts to being in the draft is really important, obviously. It reacts differently than the Xfinity car did, so seat time is always really important to me in getting me to feel better about where to drive the car and how it will handle in different parts of the race. I think managing fuel milage and getting track position where you can is also really important throughout the race, and if you can optimize both of those, you can give yourself a shot to be up near the front and make a charge for the win when it counts.”
Heading into this weekend at Daytona, there are 12 races left. How do you use these remaining weeks if you don’t make the playoffs?
“I think what it comes down to, and a lot of guys do it really well, is that each race is just another chance to learn a lot and get better when it comes to working on race craft and what it takes to be competitive, regardless of the circumstances. I definitely would love to be in the playoffs, but if I don’t make it that far, I still have a bunch of races where I can go work on my skill, learn a ton, and still get my first Cup Series win. I am grateful for the opportunity to race each week and this season has been a lot of fun, and we aren’t done having fun yet.”
● Event: Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Round 25 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 24
● Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
● Layout: 2.5-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 160 laps / 400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 35 laps / Stage 2: 60 laps / Final Stage: 65 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / MRN Radio / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
TSC PR
