By T.J. Buffenbarger
T.J.’s Takeaways from the Race for the Million Event at Berlin Raceway
(July 25, 2026) – After two features and a wild night of action at Berlin Raceway here are my takeaways from the richest event in winged pavement sprint car history courtesy of the Race for the Million series.
• Jake Trainor and Matt Seymour’s resourceful group of racers continue to impress me with their aptitude to being fast in any racing discipline they decide to take on. From pavement midgets (I always joke with Seymour they are not bad for a NEMA midget team), the Chili Bowl Nationals, Little 500, non-wing pavement sprint car racing, and now winged pavement sprint car racing, they find their way to the front.
Taking on winged pavement sprint car racing, Trainor and Seymour showed off the hard work they have put in this year with a dominant performance in the first feature event. After inheriting the lead after Ryan Litt’s misfortune, Trainor was never seriously challenged.
Had the feature been slightly longer than 40-laps things could have been interesting as quickly as Swanson was closing on Trainor in the late stages, but Trainor was up to the challenge and handed the dominant combination of Swanson and Dick Myers the first of two rare defeats in winged pavement sprint car competition.
IN the second feature event the Berlin crowd was going crazy as they were locked in on Trainor’s every move, cheering as he advanced his way through the field. At one point it appeared that march would stall out at 12th position, but a late caution gave new life to Trainor’s march to the front and was able to parlay that restart into a solid top 10 finish in the second main event.
I joked on social media and with friends that Seymour and Trainor could make a cinder block look fast. Even with their accolades I don’t feel this combination gets enough praise throughout the entire sprint car world.
• JoJo Helberg’s crazy journey to Michigan on a last-minute whim to have another father son racing adventure might be one of the best stories of the 2026 season.
Deciding to race on Monday, Helberg and his father thrashed to put together their car that was disassembled for powder coating. Leaving on Wednesday with their pickup truck and a small trailer and traded off driving cross country to arrive at Berlin Friday morning.
With just Helberg and his father several teams pitched in to help get tires mounted and a few other things buttoned up before they went out for practice on Friday.
Helberg rarely races anymore, but if you were to take a time machine from the early 2010’s and just saw the second main event you would think Helberg still pounds up and down the road racing winged pavement sprint cars.
Work and family take priority now and after selling off most of his racing equipment, Helberg picks and chooses a few spots to make sporadic starts.
While the first feature event performance was not up to Helberg’s high bar for himself, the second one was a classic between two of the most dominant drivers on the pavement in the past decade with Helberg and Swanson.
Helberg made one of his few starts running down Swanson for the lead, then taking advantage of a late race restart to blast around the top of Berlin Raceway to drive by Swanson, which does not happen often in winged pavement sprint car competition.
Afterwards Helberg was as thrilled as I’ve ever seen him for winning a feature. Not having as many sprint car starts has made him more appreciative of performances like these.
I’m not sure how much more we’ll see Helberg behind the wheel of a sprint car, but Saturday’s performance at Berlin will be one of the most memorable and will make that trip back to California in the pickup truck and tag trailer go much faster.
• When Kody Swanson at the Dick Myers team look back on Saturday’ s event at Berlin Raceway I think it will be viewed as a missed opportunity.
Swanson went out early in qualifying Saturday, which the order was based on practice speed. Swanson and Myers used the practice sessions as a chance to break in tires and took a slower pace, basing their setup on data they found during Friday’s practice.
The sunshine came out when Swanson went to qualify and ended up uncharacteristically 14th in qualifications, giving Swanson and the Myers team an uphill battle through the heat race and missing the dash, forcing Swanson to start 10th in the main event.
Swanson made a charge and got up to second and was closing in on Trainor for the lead but ran out of time. Had that cloud stayed in place and Swanson picked up a couple of spots in qualifying, the story could have been different in the first feature.
The second feature Swanson appeared to be up to his typical dominating ways until JoJo Helberg made his presence felt and setup a battle of the Californians where Helberg was able to use a line Swanson showed him earlier in the feature to defeat him.
Had Swanson won that first feature event I felt that he could have gotten further up through the field than Trainor. While Trainor was fast, that team is still figuring out winged pavement sprint car racing. I believe Swanson and Myers could dig down and find a little more to make their way through the pack, but ran out of time in the first race to make that happen.
It will be interesting to see how Swanson and the Myers team bounce back from a rare defeat for the final round of the Race for the Million tour in California.
• Saturday’s event at Berlin Raceway was the best winged sprint car event I have been since Troy Decaire’s big win there in 2011.
Over the past decade winged pavement sprint car races have turned into 3-4 fast cars (or less) lapping 10-12 other cars multiple times with not much racing. Instead, 30+ cars with 15 more that could win created a competition level and racing program that we are used to seeing on the dirt side of the sport but rarely see on the pavement with winged sprint cars.
Saturday’s race at Berlin Raceway featured the best pavement sprint car field I have ever seen in person. Match that to the incredible facility at Berlin Raceway with its well-worn racing surface, Berlin’s fans bringing their enthusiasm for the sprint cars, and it made for a magical night.
Unlike the fiasco at Owosso a month ago, the Berlin program went much smoother under supervision of competition director Randy Hannagan. There was just the standard amount of down time for pavement sprint car race (which is still sub part compared to the High Limit Racing programs on the dirt), but the improvement in the program was noticeable.
The best part of the night was seeing the teams and hard-core pavement sprint car fans finally having some events they can truly be proud of. I have not been to Davey Hamilton’s event out in Las Vegas, but I’m guessing it has the same kind of vibe as Berlin had on Saturday.
Talking to racers Jeff Montgomery and Bryan Warf from the west coast, they were just thrilled to race at tracks they had only seen on videos and never thought they would have a chance to visit as much as I was to see them compete and shake their hands rather than just be another name in a box scores I post on Sunday morning.
Hopefully when the series concludes in Colorado winged pavement sprint car racing can use this as a springboard to raise the competition level. It doesn’t take a lot of races to do this but does take some quality payouts to make happen.
The teams that participated in Saturday’s program at Berlin deserve to be competing at this level and hopefully we continue to see events like Race for the Million take place for them to do so.