,Late in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway, Josh Berry got into Carson Hocevar in Turn 1, sending the No. 77 spinning. Berry went on to finish 13th while Hocevar fell back to 32nd.
While some believed the contact to be intentional, Berry has revealed that this was not the case.
“The 43 [Erik Jones] was a restart at turn seven. Obviously, we’re all jammed up into each other,” explained Berry on Saturday, at Dover. “The 4 [Noah Gragson] car was on my right and kind of clipped me, and we just all got bottle-necked up and he got turned around . The 77 [Hocevar] was a complete mistake on my part. I laid off at the bottom of one. I was trying to time it to where I could get up beside Carson and follow the 45 [Tyler Reddick] through and was just too fast to the top of the hill, got too far left and ran into Carson and knocked him off the track.
Josh Berry, Wood Brothers Racing Ford
Photo by: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images
“It’s unfortunate. Obviously, I hate it for those guys. I tried calling Carson on Monday and sent him a text, but never heard anything back. I did talk to Luke [Lambert, crew chief for #77] on Monday morning to apologize to those guys and it’s just part of racing. We were on old tires and, for me, probably just trying a little too hard in that situation.”
Hocevar has been in the middle of several run-ins this year, but normally, he was the aggressor.
This time, Hocevar was on the receiving end of some overzealous driving. He has since made it clear that he does not intend to respond to Berry, but not out of anger. He simply believes Monday phone calls to apologize don’t really help to accomplish anything.
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