Josh Berry announces he will not return to the 21 car for NASCARs 2027 season. The Wood Brothers team.

Josh Berry is known as a hard-nosed driver with a blue-collar background. Someone who worked hard, clawing his way up from the short tracks, grabbing the attention of NASCAR royalty in Dale Earnhardt Jr. who gave him the opportunity of a lifetime.

Opportunity of a Lifetime

Berry has now made over 100 starts in the NASCAR Cup series and racked up his first win.

But none of that may be good enough to keep him in the Cup series.

Berry made his full-time Cup debut with SHR in 2024. But that team announced in the middle of the 2024 season that they would be shutting down at the end of the year, and suddenly Josh Berry needed to find a home.

Breaking News

But Berry caught another break. The Wood Brothers needed a new driver, and Berry was ripe for the picking. So in July of 2024, he signed a multiyear contract and became the face of the legendary team.

At first the match seemed to be made in heaven. Berry gave the team its 101st win, and his first, just five races into the 2025 season. He and the team made NASCAR’s Playoffs, and Berry continued to build on his resume.

A Changing Landscape

This season, however, has been anything but a barn burner. Through the first half of 2026, Berry had just one top-10 finish, that coming in the season-opening Daytona 500.

Then in June during an otherwise routine midweek teleconference, Berry dropped a bombshell.

“I’ll just go ahead and put it out there that I will not be back in the 21 car next year,” he said. “I’m obviously disappointed about that. They’ve been amazing to work with. They’re amazing people and it’s been such a great opportunity.”

A Struggle to Find a Ride

Since then, Berry has been searching for opportunities, but the 35-year-old admitted, ironically during another midweek teleconference this week, he has made little progress in finding a ride for next season.

“I don’t feel any closer now than I did two months ago if I’m being honest,” he said.

According to Berry, his struggles to find a new team may be largely due to NASCAR’s business landscape, one in which funding can be just as important as performance.

“We’ve had conversations,” he said. “We’ve had good ones. We’ve had bad ones. We’ve had ones that we thought had potential. We had ones that we sat down, and they asked for three million dollars, so it’s been a little bit of a challenge working through all of that.”

NASCAR has seen significant changes in recent years, with teams folding and drivers facing uncertainty about their futures.