By Jacob Seelman
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Oct. 4, 2025) – Bobby Santos III stole a small portion of Joe Liguori’s thunder at the end of Saturday night’s Must See Racing Perfit Sprint Car Series season finale, making a last-lap, last-corner pass of Aaron Willison to complete a weekend sweep of the Perfit Southern Shootout.
Liguori, meanwhile, finished third behind that duo at Montgomery Motor Speedway to finish off his third series championship, becoming just the second driver in history to win three or more titles.
It was a day of dueling storylines at the Alabama half mile, with Floridian Daniel Miller starting it off by earning his first ever fast time with Must See Racing during single-car qualifying, edging Santos to do so in thrilling fashion.
After Willison and Tommy Nichols won their respective heat races, Dylan Reynolds redrew the pole position for the second race in a row and got a good launch to lead at the initial green flag.
Reynolds paced the first five circuits, but Willison marched forward quickly from fourth on the starting grid, making an outside sweep off turn two to take the lead from Reynolds on lap six.
Moments later, the race’s lone caution flag waved when fourth-running Alby Ovitt slowed to a stop on the high side in turn four, bunching the field up for a frantic double-file restart.
Willison chose the outside for the lap-eight restart and got away cleanly, with Liguori slotting into second and Santos getting to third, setting up a three-way fight for all the marbles as the race wound into its second half.
Inside of 10 laps to go, the top three were all within a second of one another, with Santos scrapping hard for second before finally wrestling the position away from Liguori coming to five to go on the outside.
While that was happening, Willison was catching the back of the field, and the turbulent air from Kevin Mingus’ car cost him precious lap time as Santos began closing in down the home stretch.
Coming to two to go, Santos had a run on Willison for the lead, but slipped coming off turn four and seemingly lost his chance to pounce at that point. But the open-wheel veteran reloaded, and sent his DJ Racing-prepared No. 22a deep into turns three and four on the outside with the checkered flag looming.
The car stuck, and Santos surged around the outside of Willison on corner exit, leading only the last 100 yards of the 30-lap main event to win for the second day in a row and bank another $10,000 winner’s check.
It gave Santos $20,000 for the weekend, as well as four Must See Racing wins on the season and 14 for his standout career. But it wasn’t easy, as Santos attested after climbing from the car and catching his breath from the intensity of the moment.
“Oh my God, that was tough,” Santos said. “After looking at it now, I’m glad we started where we did, but going in we were deep enough I wasn’t sure we’d be able to pull this off. I had to work my butt off. That was such a hard race, and I didn’t know I was going to get to fifth … let alone to second and even with a shot to win there at the end.
“I thought the lap cars actually cost me the shot to win the race, and then a lap car ended up giving me the opportunity to win the race in that final corner,” he added. “It’s all for these guys on my team. They work so hard and it’s great to reward them with an exciting win like this.”
Willison was understandably disappointed with runner-up honors, after leading 24 of the 30 laps and coming oh-so-close to his second win of the year.
“The Statham Construction [No.] 36 was really good all night; we just got burned by a cloud of lap traffic right on that last lap,” Willison lamented. “It happens every now and then, when you come up on four or five of them racing each other really hard, and you’re just pinned in. There was nothing I could do.”
Liguori’s third-place finish at Montgomery backed up his win at the track from four years ago, the same night he earned his first Must See Racing points title in 2021.
This time, while it wasn’t a race win, the big trophy still went home with the Lebanon, Ind., resident.
“At the beginning, Aaron was a bit better than us, but he started cooking the right rear [tire] a bit and we were able to close on him,” Liguori reflected. “I’d sneak up on him a bit and then lose the nose … and I just had the wing too far back to get in his dirty air and be able to do anything, and that let Bobby get around me.
“It’s a testament to our team that we came back for a podium, after we blew off the left rear tire in the heat race. We were lucky we didn’t get any damage from that, and we just kept fighting. Three championships in six years with Must See is really cool, and hopefully we can add to that in the future.”
Miller crossed fourth and Dodge Carlbert, the current Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series 360 point leader in the Southeast, completed the top five. Both drivers’ finishes were MSR career bests.
While Miller’s 16.716-second lap (109.835 mph) was just a shade off the Must See Racing track record at Montgomery of 16.544 seconds from 2021, it was nowhere close to the all-time mark at the .51-mile oval of 15.038 seconds (122.090 mph). That lap was turned by Santos on April 3, 2016.
Liguori and the rest of the Must See Racing field will be honored for their season accomplishments during the sanctioning body’s annual Night of Champions this winter.
Specific details will be announced in due course at www.mustseeracing.com.
RESULTS: Must See Racing Sprint Car Series; Montgomery (Ala.) Motor Speedway; Oct. 4, 2025
Qualifying (best of two laps): 1. Daniel Miller, P1, P1 Chassis-16.716; 2. Bobby Santos III, 22a, Fieler-16.741; 3. Colton Bettis, 61, Bettis-16.859; 4. Aaron Willison, 36, Statham-17.015; 5. Joe Liguori, 5, PCS-17.083; 6. Alby Ovitt, 20, Parker-17.145; 7. J.J. Dutton, 86, Dutton-17.448; 8. Dodge Carlbert, 9, RAD-17.496; 9. Dylan Reynolds, 24, Reynolds-17.555; 10. Kevin Mingus, Z10, Mingus-17.563; 11. Tommy Nichols, 55, Nichols-17.731; 12. Shane Butler, 18, Butler-17.937; 13. Bobby Komisarski, 7, Fogle-18.118; 14. Johnny Gilbertson, 77, Crowder-18.335; 15. Mickey Kempgens, 68R, Rudolph-19.750; 16. Steven Hollinger, 81, Blake-NT.
TTI Machine Heat #1 (8 laps, all transfer): 1. 36-Aaron Willison [5], 2. 18-Shane Butler [1], 3. Z10-Kevin Mingus [2], 4. 9-Dodge Carlbert [3], 5. 77-Johnny Gilbertson [7], 6. 22a-Bobby Santos III [6], 7. 20-Alby Ovitt [4].
TTI Machine Heat #2 (8 laps, all transfer): 1. 55-Tommy Nichols [1], 2. 24-Dylan Reynolds [2], 3. 61-Colton Bettis [5], 4. P1-Daniel Miller [6], 5. 5-Joe Liguori [4], 6. 86-J.J. Dutton [3], 7. 7-Bobby Komisarski [7], 8. 68R-Mickey Kempgens (DNS).
Perfit Southern Shootout A-Feature (30 laps): 1. 22a-Bobby Santos III [7], 2. 36-Aaron Willison [4], 3. 5-Joe Liguori [6], 4. P1-Daniel Miller [5], 5. 9-Dodge Carlbert [10], 6. 55-Tommy Nichols [3], 7. 18-Shane Butler [2], 8. 77-Johnny Gilbertson [12], 9. Z10-Kevin Mingus [11], 10. 86-J.J. Dutton [9], 11. 24-Dylan Reynolds [1], 12. 20-Alby Ovitt [8], 13. 68R-Mickey Kempgens [13], 14. 7-Bobby Komisarski (DNS), 15. 61-Colton Bettis (DNS).
Lap Leader(s): Dylan Reynolds 1-5, Aaron Willison 6-29, Bobby Santos 30.
Hard Charger: 22a-Bobby Santos (+6)