● Most people head to Miami to soak up the South Florida sunshine, catch the waves at the beach, or enjoy good seafood. This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series competitors head to Homestead-Miami Speedway to run mere inches from the wall at nearly 200 mph in their determined effort to take home the hardware on the slick, 1.5-mile oval. Josh Berry will climb into the No. 4 Panini Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing for his first Homestead start in the Cup Series. The 34-year-old driver from Hendersonville, Tennessee, does have four NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Homestead in the No. 8 JR Motorsports entry. In those four starts, he nabbed a top-10 finish in February 2021, when he started 20th and mounted a charge to finish 10th in the 167-lap race. Last October, Berry was running inside the top-10 when his car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. slid into the side of Berry’s No. 8 entry, the incident ending Berry’s bid and leaving him with a 32nd-place result.
● Returning home this weekend is the No. 4 team’s jackman, Kapil Fletcher, who hails from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just 62 miles north of Homestead. Fletcher was an avid football player who went on to play at Division I level at the University of Kansas. After hanging up his cleats, Fletcher joined NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program and utilized his athletic ability to become one of the elite pit crew members of NASCAR. Fletcher got his first win in the ARCA Series in 2017 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and never looked back.
● Crew chief Rodney Childers will make his final Homestead start for Stewart Haas Racing atop the pit box Sunday. In his previous 15 events at the track, Childers called the shots for one win by driver Kevin Harvick in November 2014. That year, the duo etched their names into the history books by scoring the Cup Series championship behind five wins, 14 top-five finishes, 20 top-10s, eight pole awards, an average starting position of 9.1 and an average finishing position of 12.9. In addition to the historic 2014 season, Childers also tallied six top-fives and seven top-10s at Homestead in his career.
● Riding along with Berry this weekend at Homestead as part of the 50th anniversary of the Ronald McDonald House Charities is the Boswell Family. Their 12-year-old son, Michael, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, in his right femur. Michael was transported three hours away from his home in Sylvania, Georgia, to Atlanta for treatment. The Atlanta Ronald McDonald House provided comfort for this family of five, with Michael’s parent and siblings all staying at the house as he underwent chemotherapy.
Josh Berry, Driver of the No. 4 Panini Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Homestead is a challenging track that requires you to run close to the wall at high speeds. How demanding is that from a driver’s perspective, and how do you manage that workload over the course of the race?
“Being able to run the top lane and be accurate on where you drive in the corners has definitely been the best way to get around Homestead and does require a lot of focus and commitment to do so. Being up at the top and driving so close to the wall allows you to maintain speed over a longer run, but that comes with the risk of getting into the wall so it’s just a really fine balancing act with small margins. The guys who can focus and hit their marks will have a better shot of running up front all day.”
When you ran at Homestead for the first time, how steep was the learning curve being and how did you work on improving as you got more seat time there?
“Honestly, the change in the grip level over the course of the run was something that stood out to me. We all know it gets slicked out, but going there for the first time and feeling it from the driver’s seat is just something you can’t prepare for in the sim or from trying to compare it to other tracks. I have said it all season, there is nothing that beats seat time and going to Homestead, where the track changes pretty dramatically, is paramount. So, our practice time is super important to me since I haven’t run there in the NextGen car yet.”
Homestead is notorious for its slick racing surface – do any of your Late Model skills translate to managing tires and staying on the wheel as the handling goes away?
“The one thing I think that’s comparable is managing your tires and making sure you don’t slip them. In the Late Model races, you only get one time to change tires, so keeping the grip as high as you can is so important, and the same logic applies this weekend. Not slipping the tires and making adjustments as the race goes on to keep up with the track is going to be vital to running well.”
● Event: Straight Talk Wireless 400 (Round 34 of 36)
● Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Oct. 27
● Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway
● Layout: 1.5-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 85 laps / Final Stage: 102 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
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