CONCORD, N.C. — Winning the NASCAR Weekly Series championship is a pretty big deal for drivers who don’t have buses, don’t fly to every race and don’t have the resources that, say, a NASCAR Cup Series driver does.

They are the road warriors, the weekly racers who compete on the weekends and fix what they broke during the week, often holding down a full-time job at the same time. It’s a local and regional battleground that is brought to a national conclusion, and the battles take place every night of the week, not just on weekends.

Josh Berry won this year’s NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series championship, the first national championship for JR Motorsports that did not come in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. It goes along with a pair of CARS Racing Tour late model stock car titles (owners’ in 2016, drivers’ in ’17) and track championships at Virginia’s Motor Mile Speedway and Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway.

Last year, Berry walked the dog in the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, setting a track record in qualifying and leading all 200 laps of the late model stock event in the Mid-Atlantic. A few weeks later, Berry won the CARS Tour finale at South Boston (Va.) Speedway from the pole, led every lap and still fell a single point short of the championship, which was eventually claimed by Bobby McCarty.

That played a role in what happened this year.

The Tennessee driver didn’t even plan to race for the NASAR Weekly Series title this year, but fate and a reckoning played a role that put him on that path. After the pandemic restrictions eased and racing got back to (somewhat) normal, Berry’s season changed during another CARS Tour event at North Carolina’s Ace Speedway.

Racing wheel to wheel with McCarty on a restart, with Berry on the outside, the pair entered turn three side by side. The result saw Berry spin up to the outside wall. After pitting to fix a broken shock mount, Berry got his All Things Automotive/iRacing Chevrolet back on the track, five laps down.

It wasn’t the first time he and McCarty had tangled on the track, but a message was about to be sent. McCarty wound up in the wall on the front straightaway and Berry was disqualified and suspended for one race. With a limited schedule, the punishment effectively ended Berry’s chances at a CARS Tour title.

Four months later, Berry got a phone call from NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell to congratulate him on winning the NASCAR Weekly Series championship. In doing so, Berry joined a pretty slick list of drivers to have done that. The legendary Larry Phillips won it five times, as did Philip Morris. Modified legend Ted Christopher is on it, along with Joe and Ed Kosiski, Barry Beggarly and Max Prestwood.

Berry won 27 races in 40 starts, only 14 of which counted toward the NASCAR title, and finished the season by dominating the CARS Tour’s $30,000-to-win Old North State Nationals at South Carolina’s Greenville-Pickens Speedway in October.

That kind of season comes along once in a lifetime. And, as is usual with those kinds of things, it led to something better. At the conclusion of the season, Berry’s team owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., announced Berry would drive the first half of the coming NASCAR Xfinity Series season in JR Motorsports’ No. 8 Chevrolet.

That’s a fantastic payoff for the 30-year-old Berry, who first got to know Earnhardt through iRacing and came to drive JRM’s late models in 2010. Earnhardt and his sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, first formed JRM as a late model team and have fielded entries since 2004. It’s the building block upon which JRM was established and Earnhardt has said it will always be part of the organization, come what may.

Berry’s title, which is his fifth for JRM, is a throwback to simpler days in our sport. Berry came to JRM, worked hard, won races, improved his talent and ended up earning his way toward the top of the NASCAR ladder.

That’s the way it should be, in my opinion. Learn your craft, make good decisions, show your talent … get rewarded for being good at what you do. Josh Berry has an opportunity to take a big step forward from here and that gives hope to every other driver competing for the NASCAR Weekly Series title.