By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
MARTINSVILLE, VA – Josh Berry and his JR Motorsports never put one foot out of line on route to a dominating victory in the ValleyStar Credit Union 300.
Berry held off Lee Pulliam and Timothy Peters on a restart with six laps to go. Off of turn two, he surged forward, leaving his competition in the dust. While it was a position reminiscent to previous races, this time Berry checked out and cruised to victory at Martinsville Speedway.
Berry explained he applied lessons learned from one year ago on route to victory.
“I learned a lot last year. I went home, I watched that race, I studied the restart, I studied what I could’ve done better and just really focused on that there at the end. We were able to work on the car a little bit.”
Only three times did Berry have any serious challenges to his lead. One from fellow CARS Tour regular Layne Riggs on a restart just before the end of the first stage, and the other from another CARS Tour regular, McCarty, on a restart in the second stage.
The final time was on that final restart with six laps to go. Once Berry had cleared Peters and Pulliam had challenged for second, the JRM driver was long gone. Unlike previous years, the race went green through to the end.
With restarts being a key to how the race played out, Berry admitted he was lucky the race remained green.
“A lot of times these things come down to restarts at the end. We were fortunate enough to get clear and then it stayed green. Plenty of time too. You have that caution at the end, but it was able to stay clean. I think the two behind were racing, so we were able to build a gap and it just was unbelievable.”
With no inversion to worry about, Berry had little to worry at the start of each stage. The changing cast of characters to his outside and in his mirror was a result of the choose cone. The 28-year-old always chose the preferred line on the inside every time the cone was deployed.
The team’s quest to win the coveted grandfather clock in the Daytona 500 of Late Model Stock racing took eight attempts. Berry also racked up $44,000 in winnings for the perfect showing. Berry led all 200 laps, won the pole, and won both stages.