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| JOSH BERRY TAKES THE CHECKERED FLAG AT HICKORY MOTOR SPEEDWAY. (SHERRI STEARNS PHOTO) |
Big season was sweet for Berry
By Tom Gillispie
Josh Berry says he set high goals for this season at Hickory
Motor Speedway, and he wound up exceeding them.
“We had a great season,” he said. “I was never worried about
points racing; I was just worrying about wins. I’m very hands-on about the car,
and that made it more stressful. You don't want problems to be your fault.”
Still, he won the points titles in Late Model and the Paramount
Kia Big 10 Racing Challenge. He beat William Byron, his Jr Motorsports
teammate, by 68 points for the track championship and Dillon Bassett by 50 for
the Challenge.
“We wound up winning eight times at Hickory and one at Southern
National,” he pointed out. “Six (wins) would have been a real success.”
Berry is one of Hickory’s seven division champions this year,
joining Kevin Eby (Street Stock); Matt Elledge (4-Cylinders); Bob Park (Classic
Sportsman); Kenneth Roberts (Renegades); Spencer Boyd (Super Trucks), and
Taylor Stricklin (Limited Late Models).
When Berry ran the Aug. 2 Nationwide race at Iowa Speedway, he
was “a little bit” worried that might have ruined his championship chances at
HMS.
“Still, I felt we could still do it,” said Berry, a native of
Hendersonville, Tenn., but now a resident of Concord. “But I couldn't have any
bad races, couldn't have any failures or wrecks. I knew that if I did my job we
could crawl back.”
They not only crawled back, they rolled ahead.
Berry says he’ll run in the Late Model race next month at
Martinsville Speedway, in the 150-lap Fall Brawl at Hickory and perhaps in a
Late Model race at Myrtle Beach in November. He also may drive Jr Motorsports’
Nationwide car at Homestead in November.
MATT ELLEDGE, 4-Cylinder
Elledge,
who lives in Statesville but keeps his shop in North Wilkesboro, says he had
two goals this season.
“This
year, my main focus is the points championship (in the 4-Cylinder division) and
to win as many races as possible,” Elledge said.
He
got his championship, but it wasn’t easy. Eddie Gilbert, Chase Pollard and
others made it tough, and he had a wreck “four or five races into the year,” he
said, that made his task harder. “It totally destroyed the front of the car.”
Former
racer Randy Canipe let him use Canipe’s old car for one race, and he and his
dad David replaced the front end of their car.
“I
worked a 50- or 60-hour job, and then we worked on the racecar,” Elledge said.
“We fixed the car in three weeks time, so I didn’t miss a race. My third race
back, I won the race.”
Elledge
won the season finale from the pole to clinch the title by six points over
Gilbert.
“This
past Saturday, we got the car where we wanted it, and I was able to race hard,”
he said.
On clinching the victory, “It was a pretty big relief,” he said.
“To go into the last race with a lead with a huge deal for me.”
SPENCER BOYD, Super Trucks
Boyd
won eight Super Truck races this season, but he was disqualified in one of
them. He went into the finale two points behind Whitney Lail. He finished
second, with her third, so they wound up tied in points.
He
won the title on victories, seven to one.
“It
was a good season,” said Boyd, 19. “The one DQ (disqualification) left me
fighting at the end. I knew I had to beat the 7 truck (Lail), and I was
cautious Saturday.”
Boyd
gave a lot of credit to his crew and to car owner Scott Whitaker, whom he met
because of racing Legends cars at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“This
year I learned a lot with Scott,” Boyd said. “We were able to get better and
better.”
Boyd
calls the trucks a “good learner division,” but he says he’s not sure what
he’ll race next season.
“It would be nice to run 20 races; I’d
like to run Late Model,” he said.
NEXT WEEK: Kevin Eby, Bob Park and Kenneth Roberts.
Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.
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