It’s been an uphill battle for Seth Bergman in 2025, but the reigning American Sprint Car Series champion endured the struggles and finally broke through to Victory Lane Saturday night at Electric City Speedway.
The reigning Series champion from Snohomish, WA, has not been silent about he and his team’s struggles through the first half of the year, notching only two top-five finishes and no wins in his first six Series races before diverting from the national schedule in late June. But after a return to the national 360 circuit last weekend — posting back-to-back runner-up efforts at fellow Montana oval Big Sky Speedway — Bergman let his improvements shine again on Saturday, leading the final 14 laps of the main event to win the finale of the Montana Roundup.
“Our team definitely needed this win,” Bergman said. “It feels good to be leaving a racetrack, for once this year, feeling good about it and getting a win.”
Despite the difficulties Bergman and his team have experienced with their new equipment this season, they never gave up or lost hope. It paid off in the end, awarding Bergman his first career Feature win at Electric City, the 26th of his national Series career and first since November 2024.
“It’s been such a struggle, and it’s been a while since we’ve won a race,” Bergman said. “There’s no way around it. It starts wearing on a driver and you start doubting yourself. Even though I’m very confident and confident in my abilities, after a while, it gets trying. So, you’ve really gotta dig deep and know you can still do it, and ultimately, give yourself good race cars.”
From the outside pole, Bergman settled in behind Series points leader Sam Hafertepe Jr. on the opening circuit and chased him around the 3/8-mile oval for the first 16 laps before a big opportunity presented itself on Lap 17.
When Hafertepe stumbled on the cushion in Turns 1 and 2, Bergman was right there to take advantage. He pointed the Oklahoma Chiller No. 23 low off Turn 2, drag raced Hafertepe side-by-side down the backstretch and threw a big slidejob on the Hill’s Racing No. 15H in Turns 3 and 4 to take the lead.
“I just made a mistake there,” Hafertepe, of Sunnyvale, TX, said. “It’s kind of unlike me to do that kind of stuff, but I did it tonight.”
“I knew I had to slide him really hard, and that was sketchy sliding to a parking curb, basically, off Turn 4,” Bergman said. “It’s hard to get in there really hard and then get your car angled and slowed up enough to where it doesn’t throw you over.”
Despite several restarts in the second half of the race, including a red-flag period after Blake Hahn crashed in Turn 4 while running second on Lap 25, Bergman was able to hold his ground out front and went unchallenged the rest of the distance.
“Once I got the lead, I knew I couldn’t slow my pace down,” Bergman said. “I just had to focus on being precise and landing on the curb in the right spots and making sure it didn’t throw me up.”
Jason Martin, of Liberal, KS, crossed the finish line second for his third-straight podium finish, complimenting his second win of the season he earned on Friday night. With that finish, the 2023 Series champion overtook Matt Covington for third in the championship points standings and now trails leader Hafertepe by 164 points with 12 races remaining in the chase for the Emmett Hahn Trophy.
“Can’t complain. We drove a lot of miles to take a little bit of money home, so that’s good,” Martin said. “It’s been a rollercoaster of a year, and I feel like we’ve got our confidence going, and Chase and I are working really, really well on this race car and it goes pretty good.”
Hafertepe was able to hold on to finish third after leading the opening 16 circuits. It was a return-to-form for the five-time Series champion after going three-straight races without a top-10 finish following his ninth Series win of the season two weeks ago at WaKeeney Speedway.
“I felt like we had probably the best car, and I just got to driving it a little too hard, and probably shouldn’t have been driving it that hard,” Hafertepe said. “I got tripped up on the curb there, and we bent a lot of parts on our race car. Lucky to finish. Really, just hanging on the rest of the race.”
Fourteen-year-old Ryder McCutcheon crossed the stripe in fourth place, garnering his first career national Sprint Car top-five result, while Matt Covington crossed fifth to complete the top five.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series is back in action in Kansas and Nebraska next Friday–Sunday, Sept. 5–7, starting with a double-Feature program Friday at Lakeside Speedway before visits to 81 Speedway on Saturday and Eagle Raceway on Sunday.
Tickets for all three events will be sold at the track on race day. If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view all results)
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 23-Seth Bergman[2]; 2. 36-Jason Martin[3]; 3. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 4. 17W-Ryder McCutcheon[6]; 5. 95-Matt Covington[7]; 6. 71-Brady Baker[8]; 7. 2B-Garrett Benson[5]; 8. 00-Kory Wermling[19]; 9. 37-Trever Kirkland[18]; 10. 4L-Lane Taylor[10]; 11. 2J-Zach Blurton[16]; 12. 45X-Kyler Johnson[14]; 13. 12H-Elijah Gile[17]; 14. 28-Joe Perry[21]; 15. 38B-Bryan Brown[23]; 16. 2JR-Kelly Miller[4]; 17. 88R-Ryder Laplante[13]; 18. 16G-Austyn Gossel[12]; 19. 52-Blake Hahn[9]; 20. 10-Landon Britt[11]; 21. 88-Terry Easum[22]; 22. 24M-Ian Myers[15]; 23. 88C-Brogan Carder[20]
