Josh Berry is carrying the flag for grassroots racers throughout his journey in NASCAR

There was a point in Josh Berry‘s life when he thought a career in racing was beyond his reach.

Berry is the driver who filled in for injured Hendrick Motorsports drivers Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman in eight NASCAR Cup Series races this season before landing a full-time Cup ride in Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 Ford Mustang starting in 2024. But he had to take the long road to what has become a successful NASCAR career.

That road so far has been filled with bumps and surprises, but Berry has held a steady wheel every step of the way. In doing so, he has become an inspiration for grassroots racers across the United States.

“My family were race fans, so I grew up as a race fan at a young age,” said Berry, who is in the midst of his second full NASCAR Xfinity Series season with JR Motorsports. “I watched the races as a kid, but my first racing experience would have been on my eighth birthday when I got a go-kart. I began racing just locally, just me and my mom and dad going racing.”

It wasn‘t long before Berry moved up the racing ladder to competing in a four-cylinder at historic Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.

However, the sudden passing of Berry’s mother combined with the financial burden that comes with racing almost brought an end to his career before it truly got started.

“We built a car for me to race on the quarter mile at the Fairgrounds. I raced it a handful of times, and then my mother unexpectedly passed away,” Berry said. “That created a burden on us for awhile. There was a lull there for a year or so maybe.

“When I was a little bit older, we got a Legend car and raced on the quarter mile there for a handful of years. Basically once I got to graduating high school, I‘m 18 or 19 years old at that point, each year we raced a little less. It was just a little bit harder to make happen.”

That‘s when Berry‘s racing career shifted from competing on a real race track to racing on a digital one. At the time, the computer game NASCAR Racing 2003 Season had become popular, and Berry began making a name for himself as a top-tier online competitor.

It was through this that Berry met the man who would have possibly the biggest influence on his racing career: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

At the time, Earnhardt spent much of his free time racing online. The two crossed paths when Berry competed in a league run by Earnhardt. The two later raced against each other on iRacing, which launched in 2008.

“We just developed a friendship on there,” Berry said. “We would just chat here and there. Real casual. We weren‘t really even racing together on there, we were just kind of racing around each other and kind of developed a friendship.”

Eventually Earnhardt became so impressed by Berry‘s talent that he invited him to come test one of his Late Model Stock Cars. Berry jumped at the opportunity.

“We talked about my racing at the Fairgrounds. I remember he had inquired about it a little bit. I think I sent him some videos of it. Never thought anything of it,” Berry said. “I guess at the time they were in the midst of kind of looking for a driver for the Late Model program at JR Motorsports. They were just looking for some direction there or maybe Dale was looking for a project I think, maybe, for it.

“He asked me if I‘d ever like to test his Late Model. Of course I was ecstatic, because at that point in my career and life, I never thought I would ever drive a stock car. To get asked to test like that, it was just crazy.”

Soon after a successful test at Virginia‘s Motor Mile Speedway, Berry was named the team‘s regular Late Model Stock Car driver. Track championships at Motor Mile (2012) and North Carolina‘s Hickory Motor Speedway (2014) followed in the next few years.

The 2015 season brought a major change with the creation of the CARS Tour, a Southeastern-based touring series that featured Late Model Stock Cars as its headline division.

Berry and JR Motorsports quickly found a home with the series. Despite only racing in four events during the inaugural season, Berry won three CARS Tour races. He followed that up with five victories in 2016 and four victories in 2017 to go along with the series championship.

He was doing all of that while also serving as a mentor to young drivers as part of the JR Motorsports Late Model program, including future NASCAR Cup Series star William Byron.

“We decided to go try the CARS Tour, and we ended up finding a home there after that,” Berry said. “A lot of my career and my life has been about timing, right? I raced Late Model Stocks because that was the opportunity that I had. I quickly learned to love that and love Late Model Stock racing and love racing at all these tracks in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, all of these amazing short tracks.

“I just learned to love it. It was my life.”

Berry continued in that role while racing with the CARS Tour until the 2020 season, when the COVID-19 pandemic — combined with an on-track incident at North Carolina‘s Ace Speedway that led to a one-race suspension from the CARS Tour — changed his plans for the season.

Instead of focusing on the CARS Tour schedule, Berry and JR Motorsports pursued the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national championship. The decision paid off, as Berry won 26 races and cruised to the national championship.

“It was an unusual year for everybody,” Berry said of 2020. “One of the main things that opened up the idea of us going for the national championship was the pandemic. When race tracks first started opening up, our Late Model program is a business, like a lot of people at that time, you‘re just trying to keep your business going.

“My first race back from the pandemic were twin 40-lap races at Hickory. There was like 30 cars there and we won both of them. That was when it kind of clicked. We were like, ‘Wow, we could do this.‘”

The Weekly Series championship directly led to Earnhardt tabbing Berry to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series part-time in 2021.

Berry repaid Earnhardt‘s faith with a victory early in the year at Martinsville Speedway, which he followed with a victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway while competing as a substitute driver for the injured Michael Annett.

The stock of the driver from Hendersonville, Tennessee has continued to rise since. His impressive performances in the Xfinity Series, which included three wins in 2022, is what led Hendrick Motorsports to pick him to drive the No. 9 Chevrolet while Elliott recovered from a fractured tibia he suffered in a snowboarding accident.

RELATED: How Chase Elliott can make the 2023 Cup Playoffs

He further turned heads with a runner-up finish in Cup Series competition at Richmond Raceway, prompting Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon to say, “I think he‘s got a future in the Cup Series.”

Berry will enter the next chapter of his racing career with the support of not only people like Earnhardt and Gordon, but with the support of weekly racers across the country. Berry is living proof that with enough hard work, dreams can come true.

“I‘ve had lots of guys, whether they were friends or foes over the years, reach out to me and express the excitement that they have,” Berry said. “What it does, for one, is just solidify what the CARS Tour and what the Weekly Series and what these local tracks are. That it is a proving ground. It is legitimate.

“To be in the position to get an opportunity and capitalize on it and even make it to the Xfinity Series is a big deal. I think it really shows the amount of talent and how important these short tracks are to all of us.”