NASCAR is considering making a change to its fastest lap rule after Josh Berry earned the honor after wrecking and coming back out for repairs during the Darlington race. On the Hauler Talk podcast, Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications, said the organization is considering making the fastest lap point for lead-lap cars only.
“I think that’s some of the conversation in the offseason, nothing’s going to be changing over the next nine races, but that is something we plan to look at as we move forward into 2026,” Forde said, per NASCAR.com. After wrecking in the second turn of the Darlington race, Josh Berry went to the garage for repairs. He returned to set the fastest lap (29.038 seconds) despite completing 239 of 367 laps and finishing in 38th place.
Berry may have earned the fastest lap point, but the wreck has put him in danger of being eliminated from the playoffs. After the race, Berry spoke to Matt Weaver of Motorsport about the wreck that happened on the first lap.
Josh Berry explains his Lap 1 wreck at Darlington
“It bottomed out five or six times, so I don’t know,” Josh Berry said after the race. “I saw a video of it from the one car while they were fixing it. You can see it throwing up smoke. Not really sure what happened there, if we missed something. You can’t drive these things when they’re hitting the track that hard, especially the first lap when you’re not expecting it.”
Berry is in 16th place in the playoff standings and 19 points below the cut line. He needs strong finishes at Gateway and Bristol (or win one of the races) to advance to the Round of 12.
“I still feel fine,” Berry said about his chances of advancing. “We just can’t have that happen again. It looked like some guys had some bad nights. We’re still in the game. We just got to have two good races.”
Berry clinched a playoff spot after winning the Las Vegas race in March. This is his second season as a full-time Cup Series driver and first with Wood Brothers Racing. In the regular season, Berry earned five top-10 finishes, including P8 and P9 finishes at Richmond and Daytona, respectively, before the playoffs.
