MARNE, Mich. — Race For The Million made pavement sprint car racing history Saturday night at Berlin Raceway, awarding a record $221,300, the largest single-day purse in pavement sprint car history.
Jake Trainor and JoJo Helberg each earned their first Race For The Million victories in the twin-feature event. Trainor backed up his quick time performance (12.751 seconds) by driving from the outside front row to victory in the first feature, earning championship points and a $25,000 payday. Kody Swanson and Aaron Willison completed the podium.
An ecstatic Trainor said, “Unbelievable. Right, Quick Time that was unbelievable for us. I did not think we had that in us to start the night. That set the tone…Man, I knew Jeff [Montgomery] was going to be tough starting on the pole, but I was really just hoping we had a better race car, and did we have an awesome one. It was awesome.”
The format of feature two was revealed in victory lane of the first feature, a 12-car invert of cars that finished second through 13th in feature one, with Trainor to the tail.
The second feature belonged to Helberg who made a 40-hour trek to Berlin Raceway, JoJo Helberg. Helberg found speed on the high-line and made a late-race pass around Swanson to secure his cut of the large purse payout. Helberg started seventh in the second feature.
Helberg recounted, “The start of the main event, it did ok and then it didn’t do all that good. I started to think, man, this is going to be a long race. And then, I got to the outside and I started building momentum enough to pass a couple of people. I was like ok. And then, one time on a restart I went to the third lane which I was really nervous, if I’m nervous in the second lane what’s the third lane going to be? So I get in the third lane and that thing takes off like a rocket and passes people and the car felt so stuck good.”
Swanson, again, finished runner-up and Colton Bettis finished third. Trainor’s victory also made him eligible for a $50,000 bonus had he completed the sweep from the tail of the field. While the bonus remained unclaimed, he won a $17,000 bonus, $1,000 for every car he passed in the second feature.
The finish:
Feature 1(40 laps): 1. 29-Jake Trainor [2]; 2. 50M-Kody Swanson [10]; 3. 36-Aaron Willison [6]; 4. 7X-Matt Dimit [4]; 5. 88X-Chase Locke [5]; 6. 22A-Bobby Santos III [11]; 7. 7-JoJo Helberg [13]; 8. 99-Troy De Caire [7]; 9. 5-Joe Ligouri [9]; 10. 1-Dakoda Armstong [8]; 11. 14-Davey Hamilton Jr. [19]; 12. 88SR-Jimmy McCune [17]; 13. 61-Colton Bettis [18]; 14. 91-Bryan Warf [15] 15. 33J-Jeff Montgomery [1]; 16. 11-Kyle Edwards [12]; 17. 42-Dorman Snyder [24]; 18. 5R-Darren Roberts [23]; 19. 71-Quintin Saymaan [22]; 20. 7K-Bobby Komisarski [16]; 21. 68-Mike Anderson [21]; 22. 07-Ryan Litt [3]; 23. 4-Donnie Adams Jr. [14]; 24. 6G-Bryan Gossel [25]; 25. 15-Eric Humphries [20]
Feature 2(40 laps): 1. 7-JoJo Helberg [7]; 2. 50M-Kody Swanson [12]; 3. 61-Colton Bettis [1]; 4. 22A-Bobby Santos III [8]; 5. 14-Davey Hamilton Jr. [3]; 6. 36-Aaron Willison [11]; 7. 91-Bryan Warf [13]; 8. 29-Jake Trainor [25]; 9. 15-Eric Humphries [22]; 10. 88SR-Jimmy McCune [2]; 11. 99-Troy De Caire [6]; 12. 1-Dakoda Armstrong [4]; 13. 11-Kyle Edwards [15]; 14. 33J-Jeff Montgomery [14] 15. 07-Ryan Litt [21]; 16. 88X-Chase Locke [9]; 17. 7X-Matt Dimit [10]; 18. 6G-Bryan Gossel [23]; 19. 42-Dorman Snyder [16]; 20. 71-Quintin Saymaan [18]; 21. C45-Colton Stepke [24]; 22. 5R-Darren Roberts [17]; 23. 5-Joe Ligouri [5]; 24. 7K-Bobby Komisarski [19]; 25. 68-Mike Anderson [20]
