Last weekend when Hendrick Motorsports named Xfinity Series regular Josh Berry to sit in for Chase Elliott after the driver of the number nine car was injured, he had just one goal…to finish the race and bring the car back to the garage in one piece.

Berry accomplished his goal after never having driven a Next Gen car.

Berry spoke on the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway saying, “I don’t know if I can say I got it figured out, but I mean, I learned a ton.  I think we were on our way to a pretty good day before that (throttle) issue happened, so I’m not really sure if it was self-inflicted or not. I know these guys, they’re gonna look at the data and figure it out. But you know, regardless, I think it was a good experience and a lot of fun.”

This weekend at Phoenix Raceway, Berry will again be behind the wheel of the number nine HMS Chevrolet as Elliott continues to heal.

HMS has announced a tag team effort to fill in for Elliott while he is out with a broken leg sustained while snowboarding in Colorado last week.  Reports are that Elliott will be out for six weeks.  After Elliott’s injury, he required surgery that lasted three hours to make repairs.  Elliott flew home to Georgia the next day and was to begin physical therapy on Monday.

Josh Berry will continue to drive the number nine car on the oval tracks; while IMSA driver and 24 Hours at Daytona winner Jordan Taylor will take over for the road course races until Elliott is cleared to return to the car.

Car owner Rick Hendrick spoke on the immediate future of the number nine car saying, “we’re focused on getting Chase back to 100 percent, so we’ll take however much time is necessary and make sure he has the best resources available.  Josh was impressive this weekend under difficult circumstances, and we look forward to having him drive the oval tracks until Chase is able to return. Jordan is a world-class road racer and has recently been working with out Garage 56 team preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He’ll be able to step in and do a great job at COTA.”

At the time of his injury Chase Elliott had started in 254 consecutive races.