NASCAR: Harrison Burton's replacement called his shot

Josh Berry is one of the four Stewart-Haas Racing drivers set to be displaced when the team shutter operations after the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, and he found a new ride with Wood Brothers Racing behind the wheel of the No. 21 Ford for the 2025 season.

It's no secret that Harrison Burton has struggled since taking over behind the wheel of the famed Wood Brothers entry in 2022, placing 27th in the standings as a rookie, 31st in the standings last year, and sitting 34th and last with a top finish of only 10th through 24 races this year.

Wood Brothers Racing got their 99th Cup Series win in June 2017 at Pocono Raceway with Ryan Blaney behind the wheel. Blaney was unable to deliver them win number 100 before moving to Team Penske in 2018.

In 2018 and 2019, Paul Menard was also unable to earn them that elusive victory, and the same ended up being said for Matt DiBenedetto in 2020 and 2021.

Given Burton's numbers, it goes without saying that he hadn't won in his first 96 starts with the program either, extending the team's losing streak to 262 races.

Josh Berry never wrote off Harrison Burton

Asked last month by Beyond the Flag what it would mean to be the guy to deliver the Wood Brothers that 100th victory, Berry admitted he might not get that chance.

"Yeah, I think..." Berry said, before a brief pause. "Really simply – at this point, obviously, they have racing to do this year as well, so we can't discount that. They've been on 99 wins since 2017, and they're making an investment and want to get better, want to get more competitive, and they want to win that 100th race."

Little did we know, the driver sitting last place in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings would indeed deny Berry the opportunity to go get win number 100 for Wood Brothers Racing.

Though he still sits in last place in points, Burton pulled off the upset in Saturday night's Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, locking himself into the playoffs for the first time in his career and locking the team in for the first time since DiBenedetto got in on points four years ago.

Bottom line: the fact that Berry acknowledged that there were, at the time, 15 races remaining in the 2024 season speaks volumes as it pertains to the level of respect he has for his competitors, specifically the driver he is set to replace and the team he is set to join.

While so many had already written off the 23-year-old Huntersville, North Carolina native, Berry had not, and now Burton is indeed the newest Cup Series race winner. And after three drivers before him had come up shy, he became the one to earn Wood Brothers Racing their 100th win, doing so at the "World Center of Racing".