Three Underrated Silly Season Moves to Watch in 2025
What’s Happening? The 2025 NASCAR season is closer than ever, and most driver rosters for 2025 are complete. This allows us…
Josh Berry is setting the NASCAR world on fire early on with Wood Brother’s Racing. Now, with one win under their belt, fans are wondering how the No. 21 team found its speed and if something or someone was holding the team back in recent years.
Following Josh Berry’s win this past weekend, fans are wondering how the Wood Brothers Racing is doing so well after a few down seasons. In particular, some are asking if the reason for this down performance is former driver Harrison Burton.
This question is not without reason. Burton’s tenure in the No. 21 was nothing short of a letdown for the second-generation driver.
Burton took over the No. 21 in 2022, and just 91 starts into his time with WBR, the then 23-year-old had one top-five and five top-ten finishes. We highlight 91 starts because, on July 3, 2024, WBR announced that Josh Berry would take over for the young driver in 2025.
Burton would go on to win a race later that season at Daytona, WBR’s 100th, and his final top-ten with the team. Regardless, the No. 21 team had already made their decision: Berry was in, and Burton was out.
What’s Happening? The 2025 NASCAR season is closer than ever, and most driver rosters for 2025 are complete. This allows us…
WBR is NASCAR’s oldest team, though it is not as independent as it once was. Since 2015, WBR has been aligned with Team Penske. While most have taken this to mean the No. 21 is a sort of R&D car for Penske, Berry is proving that WBR has Penske speed.
This harsh opinion of the No. 21 is perhaps due to the team’s less-than-stellar performances since Ryan Blaney’s departure in 2018. For example, Burton’s win snapped the team’s 262-race losing streak, which began with Blaney’s win at Pocono in 2017.
However, just five races into this season, Josh Berry has taken the No. 21 to one win, two top-fives, and two top-tens. This performance is three top-tens shy of Burton’s all-time stats at WBR. Berry has an 18.6 average finish in those five races. Shockingly of the past five WBR drivers, Berry’s performance is only third best behind Paul Menards’ 17.4 in 2018 and Matt DiBenedetto’s 12.2 in 2020.
Adding to Burton’s discredit, his 28.4 five-race average finish in 2022 is far and away the outlier of the team’s recent drivers. So, was the downturn in WBR’s performance directly related to Burton?
The depleting performance of the No. 21 began in 2022. Prior to that season, DiBenedetto and Menard had failed to win races in the car. Yet, these two drivers’ worst seasons were statistically far better than Burton’s best.
Stats like this make it easy to say that Burton has been the problem at WBR for the past three seasons. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad for the driver. Time and again, young drivers like Burton are called up to the top level early.
For example, drivers like William Byron, who was called up at just 20, struggled early on at the Cup level. Currently Ty Gibbs, called up at just 19, is experiencing similar woes. Age is, in fact, one of the defining contrasts between Burton and Berry.
Berry, 34, made a name for himself on the short tracks of the East Coast before getting a late start on his NASCAR career. While both navigated the NASCAR National Series around the same time, Berry has years of experience over Burton.
Like the young drivers mentioned above, Burton proved himself in the Xfinity Series prior to his promotion in 2022. Nonetheless, Burton finds himself back in Xfinity, where he has given AM Racing their best start to a season in their short history.
Burton is only 24 years old. Time and time again, young drivers who may have been called up a little too early find their way back to the top; take John Hunter Nemechek for reference. It will be a long ride back to the Cup Series for Burton. However, we will likely see him there again.
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