CONCORD, N.C. — When Seth Bergman clinched his first American Sprint Car Series National Tour championship in November, he added his name to a star-studded list of drivers who have reached the pinnacle of 360 Sprint Car racing.
Since the series was founded in 1992, 15 different drivers have picked up at least one National Tour title, while seven of them have won more than one.
Here’s a look at all of them:
Jason Johnson, five-time champion (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014)
In only his third Feature start on the National Tour at Fort Payne Motor Speedway in 1998, a young Jason Johnson parked his car in Victory Lane for the first time after a performance that set the tone for the rest of his career.
His first full campaign two years later ended with a third-place finish in the points. And after a few close calls with the title, the “Ragin’ Cajun” finally broke through for his first championship with a dominant 11-win season in 2008. Four more crowns followed, including three in a row from 2012 to 2014 before Johnson switched to full-time World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car competition the following year.
Johnson’s Hall of Fame career included 79 National Tour victories, second all-time behind Gary Wright’s 127 scores. He is also on the short list of drivers who won at least once in every season they competed full-time with the Series.
Sam Hafertepe Jr., five-time champion (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
He may share the title of five-time National Tour champion with Johnson, but Sam Hafertepe Jr. managed to win his five championships consecutively.
After a respectable third-place finish in the final standings in his second full season in 2005, the Sunnyvale, Texas driver turned his attention to the World of Outlaws trail in the latter half of the decade. But when Hafertepe made his return to the ASCS, he wasted little time establishing himself as the dominant competitor on track night in and night out.
An eight-win 2016 season was enough for his first National Tour title. But that paled in comparison to the following year, in which he nearly doubled that total with a career-high 15 wins in 2017 en route to championship number two. Hafertepe wasn’t done there though, as three more championships followed in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
2024 marked his first full season on tour since his fifth championship, and he came close to surpassing Johnson with a sixth title, finishing second behind Bergman. Nevertheless, his dozen wins on the year put him at 78 in his illustrious career, one away from tying Johnson for second on the all-time wins list.
Terry Gray, four-time champion (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998)
The first driver to win multiple championships on the National Tour, Terry Gray asserted himself as the tour’s top star in the 1990’s with four championships and 29 wins in the decade.
Gray’s first victory came in the third race in series history at Beebe Speedway in Arkansas on June 18, 1993. Two more wins followed on that inaugural tour, setting the stage for a career that has spanned more than three decades up to the present day. Gray made 47 starts in a 360 Sprint Car in 2024, including two USCS wins and a 12th-place run on Friday night of the World Short Track Challenge with the National Tour.
Gary Wright, four-time champion (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007)
When Gary Wright took the checkered flag at Forest Hill Speedway in 1994, little did anyone in attendance know, they had witnessed the first triumph of the winningest career in National Tour history.
The trophies continued to pile up in the years that followed, but his first championship didn’t come until a decade later in 2004. There was a good reason for that though – Wright didn’t take on the full tour until the year prior in 2003. His four series titles came in commanding fashion, as Wright went to Victory Lane 38 times across those four seasons on the way to 127 total wins, putting him atop the all-time wins list.
Wright may not have competed on the National Tour since 2012, but he made sporadic Sprint Car starts for several more years, with his most recent appearance coming with the Bandits Outlaw Sprint Series at Texarkana 67 Speedway in 2021.
Tim Crawley, three-time champion (1994, 1999, 2002)
A star in the Mid-South region, Tim Crawley was a force to be reckoned with for almost 30 years in the 360 Sprint Car division.
The Benton, Ark. driver became the third man to lay claim to a National Tour championship in 1994 and scored two more in 1999 and 2002. After running a partial schedule over the next two decades, Crawley returned to the Series for one more full-time run in 2022 which resulted in a fifth-place points finish.
Since then, Crawley has passed the Sprint Car torch to son Landon, who completed his first full World of Outlaws season with Sides Motorsports in 2024.
Shane Stewart, two-time champion (2009, 2011)
After making five National Tour starts across 1998 and 1999, Shane Stewart bursted onto the ASCS scene in 2003 with eight wins in 24 starts. He didn’t make a full season run until 2009, but he made the most of it when the time came and won his first national Sprint Car championship that year.
Stewart finished third behind Johnson and Brady Bacon in 2010 but came roaring back in 2011 and took his second title in three years. Those two championships springboarded him into his return to the World of Outlaws, where he ran six full seasons and picked up 36 race wins.
Blake Hahn, two-time champion (2021, 2022)
As the grandson of ASCS founder Emmett Hahn, Blake Hahn was simply destined to be a 360 Sprint Car driver.
Hahn’s rookie season in 2014 resulted in a 10th-place points finish, and one year later, he became a National Tour winner for the first time at the Salina Highbanks Speedway.
The driver of the No. 52 improved slowly but surely in the years that followed, culminating with a career-best 2021 season that included seven wins on the way to his long-awaited first championship. Hahn wasn’t satisfied with just one trophy though, as he became the fifth driver to win back-to-back titles at the conclusion of the 2022 season.
Hahn may have scaled back to a part-time schedule with the Series over the past two years, but he remains a favorite to win each time he’s in attendance, taking the checkers at Boone County Raceway in 2023 and in the final weekend of 2024 at his home track of Creek County Speedway.
Garry Lee Maier, one-time champion (1992)
Only one person can ever win the first one, and for ASCS, that person is Garry Lee Maier.
The first season in 1992 did not see an official tour – instead, the champion was determined by combined points from a selection of regional events contested that year.
That was just the start for one of the pioneers of the series – Maier finished second in the first official Series race at I-30 Speedway on May 15, 1993, and collected his first two wins later that year at Beebe and Lubbock Motor Speedway. Maier went on to win 37 times on the National Tour, making scattered starts up until his retirement from Sprint Car racing in 2011.
John Hunt, one-time champion (1993)
Tulsa, OK’s John Hunt may have only won one race at Creek County in the 1993 season, but plenty of consistency across the 13 races contested that year meant he was crowned the National Tour’s first champion as a fully-fledged touring series.
Hunt’s championship-winning season was his only full-time campaign with the Series, although he continued to race regionally for more than a quarter-century after that, including six trips to the Chili Bowl along with a handful of USAC Silver Crown appearances in 2013 and 2014.
Wayne Johnson, one-time champion (2000)
Few drivers have been a part of as much ASCS history over the past three decades as Wayne Johnson.
Johnson won for the first time on the National Tour in the second race in Series history at Lone Star Speedway in 1993 and has remained a contender ever since.
His early-career highlights included five more wins in the 90’s across Creek County, I-30 and Devil’s Bowl Speedway, but Johnson’s true breakout season didn’t come until 2000. Eight wins that year were enough to clinch the Series championship for the first time and cement himself as a driver to beat in 360 Sprint Car action.
After running part-time on the National Tour for several years after the title, Johnson returned to full-time competition in 2007 and 2008, with both years yielding three wins and a third-place points finish.
Johnson reached the double-digit mark for the only time in his career with 10 wins in 2010 but came up one spot short of Jason Johnson in his chase for another title. He continued to be a regular in Victory Lane for the rest of the decade up until 2020, when he chased and won the Rookie of the Year Award with the World of Outlaws.
Following another full season with The Greatest Show on Dirt in 2021, Johnson came back to the ASCS in 2022 to the tune of five wins and a runner-up in the points battle behind Hahn.
Johnson planned to return to the tour as a driver in 2024, but a hard crash one week before the season opener derailed those plans. Instead, Hank Davis was called in to wheel the No. 2C with Johnson as his crew chief and mentor, and he returned the favor by bringing home three wins and the 2024 Rookie of the Year Award.
Zach Chappell, one-time champion (2001)
The title of youngest National Tour champion in history goes to Zach Chappell, who won the 2001 crown at 19 years of age.
After finishing fifth in points in his rookie season in 2000, Chappell returned for season two in 2001 and came out swinging. He reached Victory Lane for the first time at Oklahoma’s State Fair Speedway in July and wrapped up the year by clinching the Series championship.
Chappell continued to add to his win total in ensuing seasons and currently stands as a nine-time National Tour winner. He continues to race regionally today, scoring one win and a third-place points finish with the Oil Capital Racing Series in 2024.
Travis Rilat, one-time champion (2003)
Few drivers have had a career with the ASCS spanning as long as Forney, Texas’ Travis Rilat.
Following a 1998 season that included four podiums and eight top fives, Rilat broke through for his maiden National Tour win the next year at Stateline Speedway in Arkansas.
He became more of a threat with each passing year, picking up two wins in 2000, then three in 2002 before a five-win 2003 season that led him to his first championship.
Rilat nearly backed it up in 2004, winning six times on the way to second in the standings behind Wright. The winning ways continued from there, as Rilat won at least once in four of his next five seasons on tour.
After scaling back to a part-time effort with the Series for most of the 2010’s, Rilat returned for one more full-time season in 2018 and ended the year top 10 in points. He then made six appearances in 2019, one of them resulting in his most recent win with the Series at Devil’s Bowl in June.
Aaron Reutzel, one-time champion (2015)
If you’re looking for drivers who used their success with the ASCS to vault themselves into sprint car stardom, look no further than Aaron Reutzel.
A top 10 points finish in his first full season on the National Tour in 2011 was just the beginning, as Reutzel won the first four races of his career upon returning to the Series in 2014. That set him up for his title run in 2015, when he won a career-high seven races on his way to the title.
Reutzel won nine more times across the 2016 and 2017 seasons before moving up to full-time 410 Sprint Car competition in 2018. His level of success remained as high as it was in the 360s, as Reutzel won three-straight titles with the All Star Circuit of Champions before joining Roth Motorsports for his first full World of Outlaws run in 2021.
The Clute, Texas driver has continued to make occasional starts on the National Tour when his schedule permits, including in 2024 at Clay County Fair Speedway where he drove the Ridge & Sons Racing No. 87 to victory in September.
Jason Martin, one-time champion (2023)
Nearly 20 years after his first National Tour win at Cowtown Speedway in 2005, Liberal, Kan. native Jason Martin remains one of the top ASCS competitors.
That maiden victory came one year before he spent a season with the World of Outlaws in 2006, collecting four top 10s in 42 feature starts. He then turned his focus back to 360 racing and picked up another National Tour victory a few years later at the Great American Dirt Track in 2012.
While he had found success in his limited starts with the Series, running a full season was a box Martin didn’t check until 2022, when he won one race and finished fourth in points. He returned for another crack at his first championship in 2023, and got the job done with a dominant nine-win season, more than doubling his total entering the season.
A string of bad luck in the middle stages of the 2024 season prevented Martin from going back-to-back, although he was still able to put together some solid runs in the fall – including a win at Arrowhead Speedway – to build some momentum heading into 2025.
Seth Bergman, one-time champion (2024)
When the dust settled on the final night of the season at Creek County, the list of National Tour champions grew by one to include the newest victor – Seth Bergman.
After living in an RV for several years while chasing the Sprint Car dream, the Snohomish, Wash. native permanently relocated to Owasso, Okla. in 2018 to place himself right in the heart of ASCS country. That decision paid dividends, as 2018 was Bergman’s best season on the National Tour up to that point with four wins and a runner-up in the points behind Hafertepe.
Bergman scaled back to a part-time National Tour schedule for several years afterwards but came back for the full schedule in 2024. Seven wins later, Bergman avenged his defeat from six years earlier and beat Hafertepe in a season-long battle to clinch his first championship.
He has no plans to stop at one though, as the No. 23 team is gearing up for 2025 in hopes of becoming the eighth driver with multiple National Tour titles to their name.