By TJ. Buffenbarger
(September 1, 2026) — Paul Nienhiser has become an accomplished regional sprint car driver out of the Southern, Illinois area over the past 14 years. Winning the championship three times with the Midwest Open Wheel Association and a Sprint Invaders Association title along with piling up wins throughout a region while running a business and raising a family is a solid accomplishment.
Starting in 2024 a series of events started to make Nienhiser contemplate what might be next in his racing endeavors.
“I’ve had a lot of things happen unexpectedly in life and people around me in the last couple of years,” said Nienhiser. “My friend Ralph Whillhite, who was a big part of my race team, was killed in a tragic accident at Jacksonville when a car hit him, and a couple of other guys that meant a lot to me early in racing career have also since passed.”
In 2025 Nienhiser also found himself out of the driver’s seat after suffering a back injury during a Sprint Invaders event in Vinton, Iowa. During that time Nienhiser was unsure he would ever be able to return to driving a sprint car. Once it became apparent his driving career was not over, Nienhiser started evaluating where he might race in 2026 realizing there was another goal in his racing bucket list.
“When I broke my back in an accident, I was pretty convinced that I was done racing then,” said Nienhiser. “After almost being done racing a couple of times, when that time came, I didn’t want to regret not taking a shot at running a full season with the IRA.”
Nienhiser sat down with some of his supporters including Scott Bonar, who owned the entry Nienhiser drove with the Sprint Invaders, Caleb Wankel, Weston Crews, Drake Willhite, and some others to see if the team was on board with following the full Interstate Racing Association schedule, which would require more travel than the team had done recently and visiting sever racetracks. The pitch was simple, the timing was right, and soon after everyone was on board.
“All of what we have been through the past two years combined with different opportunities within our farm business and my kids growing up and even at 29 years old I kind of see the writing on the wall and it could have been a now or never type situation this year,” Nienhiser said about following the full IRA schedule while balancing his family life and trade in farming. “If we waited another year too much life that could get in the way.”
Soon Tom Griffin, Drake Whillhite, Eldon Stocker, and John Taylor, along with the other people mentioned above, started to chip away at work in at the race shop along with some added help from Tony Gaylord and Roger Wagner to start making Nienhiser’s dream of following the full IRA tour a reality. That effort was shouldered by a lot of different people during the off season and into the spring due to Nienhiser’s farming commitments.
“I’ve really relied on them a lot,” Ninehiser said of the large group of people that jumped on board to support his IRA effort. “I’m a farmer by trade and back in April things got crazy. There have been certain weeks this year that I’ve hardly even touched my racecar until I got back in it the following Friday night for hot laps. it was a big task, but everybody sat down and we decided that it was the best time that in our lives that we could see for the foreseeable future to rally together and try to make it happen.”
That preparation to compete with his teams at several venues Nienhiser nor his crew had ever laid eyes on before has paid off as they are in the middle of a four-team race for the 2026 IRA Sprint Car points title and fighting with fellow Illinois driver Will Armitage for rookie of the year honors with the series.
While Nienhiser was confident he and his team were capable of the challenge based on his experience traveling during his racing career but was still surprised on how deep the IRA fields were on any given night.
“I think maybe some of the unexpected part would just be the depth of the field,” said Neinihser of the level of competition within the IRA right now. “The field is incredibly deep. I think on any night probably 10 plus cars could win. The strength of the field probably surprised me more than anything”
That depth showed after Nienhiser got off to a quick start with strong runs including a feature win a Sycamore Speedway in May but hit a rough stretch through the middle of the season. At one point things had become bad enough that Nienhiser contemplated a different path to finish out the year.
“We shot out of a cannon this spring before we had some bad luck along with few things that went wrong that were really no fault of anybody’s,” said Nienhiser about the early days of his first IRA season. “We dug a big hole in the middle of June and had a front axle brake on me leading at Schawano, Wisconsin, some cars came around the track hit me and trashed my car. I was almost ready to quit. We were supposed to go to Michigan with IRA the next week and I was really contemplating just not going and going back to a pick and choose schedule from there on out. We chose to carry on obviously and sitting here the first weekend of September I’m kind of glad we did.”
The second and sixth place finishes during both shows in Michigan with IRA helped give Nienhiser and his team a boost of momentum that has carried through the summer.
“Our consistency started to come back,” Nienhiser pointed out after that two-race Michigan swing, “We had a few pretty big nights here since then along with some of the other guys having some of that bad luck that we tasted earlier in the year.”
Staying on the path with the IRA has led Nienhiser into the point lead going into the three-race weekend over Labor Day with the series, facing some up-and-coming stars in the sport right on his heals in the point standings, which is a position Nienhiser did not assume would happen but was felt his team was capable of.
“I believed in my race team and my guys, and truthfully, my ability too. But did I expect to be in contention for the championship? Absolutely not,” said Nienhiser. “A couple of the young guns like Armitage have been good. Obviously, Logan Julian seems talented, and his family is behind him to probably take him much further during his career than I ever went, especially considering how young he is. Travis Arenz, who’s been leading the points, he’s tough as well.”
While racing for a championship Nienhiser and his group of faithful followers try not to count points on a nightly basis but try to be consistent enough to make the program work financially while contending for victories often enough to keep the team’s morale up while using a majority of their free time to work on their race car.
“I just pretty much try to block it out. I feel like the results ultimately will you know shake themselves out,” said Nienhiser of thinking about the points on a race night. “Our goal is to be the fastest car on the track every time we go, and obviously to win every night. That’s why we do it. If we’re just running sixth or eighth consistently all year long with no DNFs, we’d probably be still leading the points right now. But that’s also for me at least, and I think for my guys that’s probably not as much fun. I mean, we all do this for the thrill of winning. We’re here to win races. Part of it affects the bottom line too. Our race team operates on performance, and if we just go up and trash a bunch of cars trying to win every night, that’s also not going to work on the bottom line.”
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the IRA tour this summer for Nienhiser has been traveling the tour with his wife Reagan and two young daughters that are on the cusp of starting their first year of school.
“Pretty much outside of I think like one weekend earlier this year when they had a dance recital I missed, we hop in the car and head up there to the races. It’s been fun,” said Nienhiser of his family road tripping adventures on the IRA tour. “My oldest daughter actually learned how to swim this summer because we spent so much time in hotels, and it’s been really cool.”
While Nienhiser attempts to win the IRA championship, the farming work does not wait for a potential trophy to be brough home. Nienhiser has already put plans in place to keep his harvest on track along with his championship desires.
“We’ve recruited some pretty good help here this fall. We’re usually slightly shorthanded, but we have some family from out of state that pitches in every year,” said Neinshier. “We will probably roll out the combine the middle of next week, so the IRA schedule is nearly over by then, outside of a Jackson weekend and then the championship weekend after that. I’ve got some plans in motion for travel and trying to be gone as little as possible.”
When asked if he would chase another IRA championship in 2027, Nienhiser was non-committal wanting to evaluate the situation after the season with the focus being on his young family.
“I don’t really want to put the cart in front of the horse too much on that. We want to just kind of finish this year out,” said Nienhiser on a possible second run on the full IRA tour. “I don’t know what’s in store. Realistically this might be our best shot to you know commit to a full schedule. My kids are getting older; you just never know what they’re going to get involved in and my number one job is to be a dad and a husband. If my family has commitments or things that the kids are involved in, I don’t ever want to be the kind of dad that’s going to a racetrack and watching from FaceTime or something like that. I’m going to be present. The older they get, the more challenging that’s going to be.
“It’s just a matter of you know what everyone’s schedule allows. If that means going back to more of a pick and choose schedule racing a little closer to home with other series, that’s what it’ll be. It seems like you know all our partners on my race team are behind whatever we are going to do, so I’m fortunate to have people behind me like that, and you know, we’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.”
Other Notes
- Congratulations to John and Connie McCoy for completing their final regular season night of duty at Knoxville Raceway after decades of service at the Marion County half-mile oval. The McCoys have put in a tremendous amount of work at Knoxville Raceway with John taking on the role as race director and promoter. The McCoys were a pleasure to deal with at Knoxville, even during some situations that were not easy to discuss at times. McCoy was always straight forward, polite, and informative when these situations arose. Former driver and current technical inspector at Knoxville Skip Jackson will be taking over John McCoy’s duties at Knoxville in 2027.
- Some of the racers couldn’t let McCoy have a quiet final night as promoter at Knoxville Raceway. Terry McCarl and Scotty Johnson had some fireworks on track where Johnson ended up flipping down the frontstretch over Johnson’s left rear wheel. Based on the video there was plenty of blame for everyone involved and insured McCoy’s final night working at Knoxville ended with some fireworks.
- The IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car Nationals take place this weekend at Eagle Raceway in Eagle, Nebraska. Adding to the alure of this year’s event is that the feature event from last year’s edition that was rained out is being contested on the opening night of the RaceSaver Nationals on Thursday along with the Race of Champions qualifying heats.RaceSaver also made some news last week announcing that the tire they produce on their own, a process we featured on the website this spring, will be the spec tire for the Right Rear of all RaceSaver events starting in June of 2027. The remaining three corners of the car will remain open with the same durometer rule on the left rear.
- The top three drivers in the High Limit Racing point standings, Rico Abreu, Aaron Reutzel, and Giovanni Scelzi, are very much still in contention for the 2026 series title. All three drivers have experienced extremely hot and gold streaks, with Reutzel’s recent run at Silver Dollar Speedway during the Gold Cup Race of Champions bordering on freezing before rebounding with a win last night with the series in Oregon. The dramatic swings in performance from all three drivers could bring this championship down to the final night of competition in Texas.
- The 2027 edition of our Allstar Performance Open Wheel Calendar will be published on the Tuesday after Labor Day. We have started to populate dates with most of the major Australia and New Zealand races being listed on the 2026 calendar as part of that process.