Josh Berry is moving up. On Wednesday, it was confirmed that the current JR Motorsports driver will slide over to the Ford camp and be joining Stewart-Haas Racing as Kevin Harvick’s replacement in the No. 4 Ford.

See, Berry is an anomaly in today’s NASCAR. In this day-and-age, drivers getting chances to move through the ranks aren’t much removed from passing a drivers license test. It’s all about the youth and how much money you bring.

Berry, 32, isn’t old, but he’s also not in the age group that typically get opportunities like this either. He also doesn’t bring any money with him. That didn’t matter for SHR. They made the right choice here.

“I’m not interested in some kid’s father coming in and buying their way into the Cup Series,” Tony Stewart bluntly said during the press conference to announce the signing of Berry. “We want guys who earn their way, work hard and understand the values it takes to be a top tier driver, not one who just got his high school diplomas and now all of a sudden he wants to be a Cup driver.”

Hence why the list of replacement drivers for Harvick wasn’t very long – it was Berry and always was Berry.

“We’re incredibly proud to have Josh Berry begin the next chapter of his racing career in our No. 4 Ford Mustang,” said Stewart. “Kevin Harvick has obviously set a very high bar, but Josh brings maturity, experience and, above all, a winning record to Stewart-Haas Racing. He is the right driver, at the right time, for the No. 4 team and our organization.”

For the Tennessee native, it was a path that Berry honestly never dreamt would come around. He was out of money and turned to a different profession to provide for his family. Racing was just something he was doing a decade ago just for fun.

So, for Berry, to be at the age of 30 and getting a call to run some races for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series for the 2021 season was a bit of a shocker. For an organization as talented as JRM, they typically would just pluck the next young star away. Instead, for that 8 car, they chose Berry.

Berry, now 32, was doing enough on the short track scene to find his place in life. He’s a racer. Always has been. However, his right moment came twice.

“I’m really proud of how I’ve gotten to this point and earned this opportunity,” Berry said. “I don’t like to use the word luck. It’s also been about preparation meeting opportunity.

Most drivers get that moment when they’re young to jump up into a Truck or Xfinity Series ride. Berry’s went the late model direction.

Back in 2008, he was going to school at Volunteer State Community College, racing legends cars at the Nashville Fairgrounds and working as a bank teller to fund his racing endeavors. It was online racing to which led Berry to Dale Earnhardt Jr.

2 years later, Earnhardt signed Berry to race for his late model team.

While he made some moonlight ARCA, Xfinity and Truck Series starts between 2014 and 2020, it was nothing to lead him down this path. He figured his NASCAR days were just part-time appearances here and there.

Then 2021 happened. He was signed on to drive for 12 races. However, he did so well, they worked out a way to keep him longer. Dale Earnhardt Jr. believed in Berry and Berry rewarded Earnhardt for his belief.

Berry won in just his 6th start that season. He had 5 top 10’s in the first 9 races including 3 of the 5 in the top 2. 12 races turned to 22 which included another win in the playoff race at Las Vegas. That spiraled into a full season for 2022, one that saw him march all the way to the Championship 4 at Phoenix.

“The Xfinity Series win at Martinsville changed my career and allowed us to point toward a full-time season for 2022 where we competed for the championship,” Berry continued.

Following an up and down regular season a year ago, Berry has went on a terror during the playoffs with a top 8 in 4 of the first 6 races.

He came back in 2023 and while winless so far, he does have 10 Top-10 finishes in 14 starts including six top fives.

Also, he got Cup opportunities with Hendrick Motorsports as well filling in for five races for the injured Chase Elliott and three more for an injured Alex Bowman. In his fourth start in the No. 9 Chevrolet, he finished runner-up in Richmond. In his first start in the No. 48 Chevrolet, he finished 10th at Dover.

Now, Berry will get one of the premiere rides to showcase his talents next season. It’s a perfect match. Berry is represented by KHI (Kevin Harvick Incorporated).

“I wouldn’t change anything about how I got here. It made me who I am,” Berry said. “Throughout my teenage years, it was a fight just to keep racing, to get to the next race.

“The timing of Dale and I getting together, that was crucial. If that doesn’t happen, I don’t know that I would’ve ever raced a stock car, or how much more I would’ve raced at all, just because racing overextended us financially. And when you race that way, it’s hard to set any kind of a long-term goal. But your goals just change as you grow.

“Those years of racing and winning, and the people I was around and worked with, prepared me for the opportunities that I’ve gotten, and they’ve prepared me to capitalize on this opportunity with Stewart-Haas Racing. Even without knowing where it would ultimately take me, I’d do it all over again.”

He’ll have Rodney Childers, another short track guy with the same background as Berry, as his crew chief. It’s a potentially dangerous pairing.

“I think one of the many things that’s made Kevin and I work so well together is our history in Late Model racing and our respect for it,” Childers said. “Late Model racing is a really great proving ground, and Josh showed that he was the best of the best when it came to pavement Late Model racing. And when he got to the Xfinity Series, he kept on winning. To be the guy who will help Josh get his first Cup win is something I’m really looking forward to.”

While SHR has taken a dip in stats lately, Harvick has still been competitive in that ride and you have a duo that gets each other already.

Since he joined SHR in 2014, Harvick has 37 wins. He also has 149 top five finishes and 228 top 10’s.

61.6% of his career wins have come with SHR. 59.8% of his top fives and 52.1% of his top 10’s did too. He’s by far the top driver in the SHR camp right now and when inserting Berry into that ride, there’s no doubt bound to be pressure.

A drawback for Berry at his age is, he only gets one chance to prove it. He’s not going to get another opportunity in a ride of this caliber if it doesn’t pan out. He has to perform now. Which fuels the pressure.

This could be the first and last Cup full-time opportunity he goes.

Harvick was winless in 2021 and is again in 2023. He had more top fives in 2020 than he had in 2021 and 2022 combined. The other three drivers sit 25-26-31 in points right now.

Hence why the pressure to perform is high. This organization is losing its leader and Berry is stepping into the leaders’ ride.

Another wrinkle to this is that he went to school with two-time NTT INDYCAR Series champion Josef Newgarden. They were classmates in middle school and now more than a decade later, two students from the same school in suburb of Nashville can be champions in racing.