By T.J. Buffenbarger
(July 23, 2026) – The third round of the Race for the Million Series begins Friday at Berlin Raceway with a day of practice leading into Saturday’s double feature program with the largest payout for a winged sprint car race on pavement and highest in the state of Michigan. The twin feature program will pay $25,000 to win each main event, and if the winner of the first feature can come from the tail of the field to win the second feature event, they will earn a $50,000 bonus.
After taking a moment to dive into the numbers, here are some interesting things to learn leading into Saturday’s program.
• With two of the four races completed 49 different drivers from 17 states and two Canadian provinces have taken part in at least one of the Race for the Million programs.
• Of those 49 drivers, 23 have participated in both Race for the Million programs that have taken place so far at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida and Owosso Speedway in Ovid Michigan.
• 34 different drivers have started at least at least one of the Race for the Million feature events over excluding Colton Bettis, who made the feature the feature at Five Flags but did not start after an incident in preliminary action.
• Of those 34 drivers, 15 of them have made all the Race for the Million feature events to date. (Aaron Willison, Bobby Santos III, Bryan Gossel, Chase Cabre, C.J. Leary, Dakoda Armstrong, Davey Hamilton Jr, Donnie Adams Jr, Eric Humphries, Jake Trainor, Jeff Montgomery, Jimmy McCune, Joe Liguori. Kody Swanson, and Troy DeCaire).
Leary’s streak will end on Saturday due to his commitment to the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series Indiana Sprint Week event at Kokomo Speedway on Saturday. Leary’s car owner Brad Armstrong has enlisted the services of Troy DeCaire, a former Berlin Raceway feature winner, to drive his #99 entry this weekend.
• Of the 15 drivers that have made both features, Santos, Swanson, and Willison are the only drivers who have finished in the top five in both Race for the Million features with Santos and Willison finishing on the podium in both events and are likely the favorites to not only win one, but possibly two features on Saturday night at Berlin Raceway. Montgomery and Swanson each have one podium.
• Swanson and Willison are the two feature winners to date in the Race for the Million series.
Other Notes…
• During Wednesday’s World of Outlaws program at Ohsweken Speedway three of the top ten drivers were Ontario residents that are weekly competitors at the track. The remarkable thing about this is that World of Outlaws program is the only winged 410 sprint car race taking place on dirt in Ontario this season, showing the continued growth of the sport in that province and how strong the competitors have become.
• This weekend might be one of the few remaining to see Graham Huffman driving on a regular basis with the Great Lakes Super Sprints. Huffman, who drives for Mintz Motorsports, turns 16 in the early portion of August and it is expected that the team’s focus will shift to winged 410 sprint car racing in Ohio once that happens.
Huffman is coming off a third-place finish with GLSS on July 10th in just his fifth winged 360 sprint car start.
• Zane Devault, who broke the winged 360 sprint car track record at Crystal Motor Speedway in April and just missed out on the all-time sprint car track record at Crystal set by Kenny Jacobs on June 5th, 1998, by just 0.001 of a second, is expected to compete this weekend with GLSS.
• After having both the High Limit and World of Outlaws in action last night the focus shifts to the start of Indiana Sprint Week at the Dirt Track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
For those that prefer winged sprint car racing High Limit has two nights of racing in New York Thursday at Ransomville Speedway before heading over to Stateline Speedway Friday before heading to Port Royal Speedway for two nights as part of the Bob Weikert Memorial on Friday and Saturday.