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Kevin Harvick reacts to Chase Elliott wrecking Josh Berry at Gateway, forcing must-win situation

ProfilePhotoby: Nick Geddes10 hours agoNickGeddesNews
Josh Berry
Joe Puetz-Imagn Images

You couldn’t script a worse start to the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs for Josh Berry. He wrecked on Lap 1 of the Round of 16 opener at Darlington and got spun by Chase Elliott on Lap 36 of Sunday’s race at Gateway.

Kevin Harvick said that it looked like Elliott was trying to “press the issue” in a tight space. Unfortunately, it cost Berry.

“It looks like when the 9 [Elliott] goes in, if you judge off the bottom of the racetrack, you see him just get a little wiggle right there going in the corner and he has to use a half of lane. Unfortunately, Josh Berry is right there, so puts the 21 [Berry] in a position… in a must-win situation going into Bristol,” Harvick said on Tuesday’s Happy Hour podcast. “Playoffs definitely haven’t started the way that the 21 car would have wanted it to with the mistakes they made last week with the car and getting on the ground and crashing right off the bat at Darlington. And this week, just kind of doing his own thing and winds up driver side into the fence.

“It’s a tough place on those restarts with the way that the racetrack is so wide. That’s the thing I loved about the racetrack this week is you had options. You could run the middle, bottom, top and really knowing how bad the cars are behind each other, it gives you an option to be able to move your car around, but the restarts were wild. You got to take everything you can get. I think with the 5 [Kyle Larson] and the 9, you just see them trying to press the issue in really tight spaces to be able to try to gain that position and it just cost somebody else.”

Josh Berry facing must-win situation at Bristol

Berry has finished last in both playoff races. He has largely struggled since his win at Las Vegas in March. That made him an underdog heading into his first playoff run and unfortunately for him, things haven’t gone his way. Berry is -45 below the cutline. He’ll be in must-win mode in this Saturday’s Round of 16 finale at Bristol.

Berry never got the chance to see what could have happened at Gateway, a racetrack the Penske cars had previously run well at. Elliott knew he messed up and apologized to Berry after the race.

“First off just want to apologize to Josh and the 21 team,” Elliott said. “I had no intention of getting into him. I’ve known those guys my whole life, so I just hope that they at least know it wasn’t anything intentional.

“Known Josh for a long time, too, so just want to make sure those guys know that I feel terrible about that. Felt terrible about it right when it happened and wish I could take it back. Yeah, unfortunately that transpired.”