Performance Racing Industry Trade Show
Notes: PRI briefs from Bernheisel, Mills, others
Jim Bernheisel at the PRI Trade Show. (DirtonDirt)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Dec. 12) — While he’s retired from competing himself, Jim Bernheisel of Jonestown, Pa., has a lot of irons in the fire with his chassis building and parts business along with promoting races. And of course there’s the 67-year-old's perennial offseason duties at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show at the Indiana Convention Center.
While he’ll try to sell his Lazer Chassis to racers, he’ll also be talking up the Appalachian Mountain Speedweek minitour he promotes each spring. He’s got six confirmed tracks on the schedule including the returning Clinton County Speedway in Mill Hall, Pa., Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway, Bedford (Pa.) Speedway and Lincoln Speedway in Abbottstown, Pa., and is putting the final touches on the June action.
“We have one or two (tracks) that want to have us, that are just scheduling issues, finding a date that works for them and fits in with what we already have scheduled in a short window,” Bernheisel said. “Then one or two others that want to have us, but we just want to make sure it fits with what we're trying to do before we pull the trigger.”
Two other expected Appalachian Mountain Speedweek tracks are Potomac Speedway in Budds Creek, Md., and Action Track USA in Kutztown, Pa., both of which were on Bernheisel’s fledgling Fall Clash circuit last year. Bernheisel’s second tour won’t be returning in 2026, he said.
“I felt like we did a really good job, put on some amazing races, really good racing. And so I was really proud of that and pleased with that,” Bernheisel said of the Fall Clash. “I’d be disingenuous if I didn't say I was a little disappointed at the support we got from both the racers and the fans. You need both those to work for everyone.
“And speaking of work, it was a whole lot of work to do. I'm very blessed with a very successful primary business, which is building race cars and selling parts, so it isn't like I need something else to do. I was trying to do something good for the sport, which is how the (Appalachian Mountain Speedweek) came about.”
The AMS minitour will continue with American Racer sponsorship, which restricts drivers to that tire brand, along with the possibility of a provisional starting spot for series drivers.
American Racer was “awesome to deal with and helped make everything what it was. It requires sponsors and they stepped up to play with a lot of sponsors, almost all of whom are really pleased with what we do and how we do it and want to be a part of it again. That’s how we're able to pay fast time awards, hard chargers, hard lucks, heat winners, dash winners, all those things. This year what we did different was actually had an actual dash. The racers loved that, the fans loved that, so that will continue on.
“Probably the only thing we're looking at (is) adding a series provisional for Speedweek each year, which is something we haven't done in the past and looking at the logistics of that.”
Wild-traveling Montgomery
Dirt racer Ryan Montgomery of Fairmont, W.Va., covered a lot of highway miles in following the Jay's Automotive United Late Model Series among other special events in 2025, and he has plans to continue that trend in 2026 in his second season with car owner Josh Wamsley of Phillippi, W.Va.
“He’s putting a lot of money into me. He likes to go to new racetracks, too. We raced 37 times at 24 different racetracks this year, so that was a little bit of ramp up for my family and stuff,” Montgomery said while touring the PRI show floor. “He's really stepped up the deal with me and getting everything that I need to be prepared to go up and down the road.”
The 28-year-old Montgomery had a successful season with a runner-up finish on the ULMS circuit and series victories at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va., and Latrobe (Pa.) Speedway. He added three independent special event victories at Tyler County, Hummingbird Speedway in Reynoldsville, Pa., and Beckley (W.Va.) Motor Speedway.
He’ll likely hit those and other tracks — the newly reopened West Virginia Motor Speedway in Mineral Wells, Elkins Speedway in Kerens, W.Va., Marion Center (Pa.) Speedway, Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway and Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y. — during another busy Dirt Late Model season.
"Between like Beckley, Elkins, West Virginia Motor Speedway, Marion Center, I'm kind of up in that area, and Stateline and stuff like that, they've got a lot of Outlaw shows, Lucas shows, and a lot of big-paying money regional shows,” Montgomery said. “So that's kind of where we plan on going and kind of doing our same area, but they just ramped it up with a lot more money, which is really good.”
Along with being a good driver, Montgomery’s not bad at marketing, either. En route to the recent Kubota Gateway Dirt Nationals in St. Louis, Mo., Montgomery found himself sitting next to FloRacing announcer Dustin Jarrett on the airplane ride. He mentioned to Jarrett he was trying to sell his 2024 Rocket Chassis, and Jarrett recalled that and announced it during FloRacing’s popular live stream of the indoor event. Someone reached Montgomery that night and bought the car.
His day job will keep him from traveling too much, but among races on his bucket list is July’s Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway.
"Unfortunately my job kind of gets in the way of our family business of building houses,” Montgomery said. “I got to take care of that, but trying to get to new racetracks and get my name out there and sling some more merch.”
Geographic benefits
Most drivers on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series make a long trek to Florida to start the schedule. But for series rookie Trey Mills of St. Augustine, Fla., he’ll have the shortest WoO trips of his season with the national tour’s January and February events all in the Sunshine State at Barberville’s Volusia Speedway Park and Clewiston’s Hendry County Motorsports Park.
“I won my first-ever Late Model race at Volusia, so to start the season there is definitely pretty cool. And then, to go down to Hendry, which is also a Florida track, so that's also pretty cool,” said the mop-topped, bespectacled Mills, a 17-year-old racer who has toured widely the past two seasons. “And then just starting out the first couple weeks, you know, we're in Tennessee and Alabama and Georgia. There's a lot of tracks that I've grown up racing, so I feel like that's where I'll really be able to shine.”
Mills, in an interview near the World Racing Group booth at PRI, is eager to capitalize on his best-ever season that included a $7,500 DIRTcar Summer Nationals victory at Macon (Ill.) Speedway and a $20,000-to-win Comp Cams Super Dirt Series victory in the Cotton Pickin’ 100 at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss., among five victories overall.
“Ever since I started racing go-karts whenever I was 6 years old, you know, it's been a dream of mine to just run a national tour,” Mills said. “This is what I wanna do for my job. I wanna race my whole life, for somebody, and just be my job and what I do for a living. I'm looking forward to getting out on the road for the first full year running a national tour and I'm super excited.”
Success in 2025 cemented those plans for the son of former Florida racer Stanton Mills.
“We went into this year considering, just thinking about going to a national tour next year, but it definitely wasn't set in stone until kind of this last half of the year. We had a really, really good season. This was the best year of my career,” Mills said. “Won two of the biggest races of my career this year, so just had a really good year and just looked at the schedule with (WoO series director) Steve (Francis) and them and the schedule just kind of felt right.
“The first couple months of the schedule a lot of tracks are close to my home — obviously we start in Volusia, which is only 45 minutes from my house. So it just kind of all worked out. My parents are giving me the opportunity, too. They said this is the year, if we wanna do it, we just need to go out and do it. So I'm really looking forward to it, just super thankful for everybody that helps me and I'm excited.”
His 2026 goals include WoO Rookie of the Year honors.
“The goal of mine for a while was to win a race that paid more than $20,000 and we did that this past year,” he said. “So now we're looking to get my first national touring win.”
Rough season
Is Derick Quade ready to put the 2025 season behind him and look ahead to 2026?
“Absolutely,” the 42-year-old Mechanicsville, Md., driver said at the PRI Trade Show. “It can’t be any worse.”
Quade this year endured his first winless season since 2016, in part because of two wrecks. The first, during a June 13 heat race at Bedford (Pa.) Speedway, forced him off a full-time bid to run Appalachian Mountain Speedweek. The second, June 28 at Winchester (Va.) Speedway’s Jimmy Spence Memorial, was even worse — the worst wreck of his career.
Leading a heat race amid rugged track conditions, his car’s right-front corner dug into the surface in turn one and sent him flying into the concrete wall, destroying the car and leaving Quade with a concussion that sent him to Winchester Medical Center.
"I was leading the heat race. They had a bunch of rain. Track was really hooked up. It was just a bad deal,” Quade recalled. “The Raceceiver wasn't working and they called me for a jump on two starts as the leader. I don't know if I just got in my head, got pissed off, and was probably driving over my head honestly.”
He ended up being sidelined until mid-September because of lingering vertigo symptoms that caused frequent dizziness. Physical therapy finally helped sort out his health issues.
“I’d lay down on my back and I couldn’t look up,” Quade said. “It’s a weird feeling.”
Quade made a handful of autumn starts without success. He’ll return to action in 2026 with a new Longhorn Chassis in Super Late Model competition and potentially running a Dan Dotson-owned Rocket Chassis in Limited Late Model action (he drove Dotson’s car at the conclusion of 2025).
Quade was a four-time race winner in 2024 and captured the title on multitrack Steel Block Clash, which didn’t continue in 2025.
Winter is coming
For the fourth season in a row, 21-year-old Dillon McCowan will launch his Super Late Model campaign against high-profile competition in winter meets. He’ll tackle the Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout for the third time in four years (but first at Casa Grande’s Central Arizona Raceway) and head to Georgia-Florida Speedweeks for the third consecutive year with a focus on Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action.
While McCowan has run well in the Midwest the last few seasons — he finished second in DIRTcar Summer Nationals points in 2024 — his winter success has been spotty at best.
In Wild West Shootout action at Vado (N.M.) Motor Speedway in 2023 and ’25, he made six of 11 features with a best finish of 10th. In 29 Georgia-Florida Speedweeks appearances in 2004-25, he’s made six full-field features with a best finish of 10th last year at Ocala Speedway.
McCowan, who was touring the PRI show floor on Friday afternoon, knows Speedweeks and Sunshine State action is challenging.
He hopes to “have solid runs and make the show and try to run top-10 and stuff like that and try to have a good time and and hopefully keep our spirits high coming out of Florida and see how everything goes.
“Florida is definitely its own beast, going down there and racing for the amount of time we get to go race for, it's definitely different in the aspect of you can't really take that anywhere else,” added McCowan, whose lone 2025 victory came in Comp Cams Super Dirt Series competition at Springfield (Mo.) Raceway. “So going down there and just paying our dues, going down there and running on them different-style tracks and the way that they race and everything, you may not see the same racetrack at any point in the night. You may go out there for qualifying and it could be totally different by the time you get out there for your heat race and whatnot.
"It's a totally different deal going down there and it's been exciting every year we've gone, getting more comfortable with the racetracks and stuff like that. So we're excited to go this year and hopefully everything works out.”
McCowan, with crewman Riley Duncan still on board, will be fielding a former Matt Johnson Longhorn Chassis that’s red (instead of his traditional green) and carrying his familiar No. 8 with returning sponsors Sonic, BLC Transportation, Empire Energy, Pomeroy Services and Mel Hambelton Ford, among others. A Scott Bailey Racing Engine will power his entry.
He wouldn’t mind digging up a few more sponsors at PRI, where he’s “just checking out all the cool stuff and, gearing up for next year.”
Morey adding AK car
Michigan-turned-North Carolina driver Luke Morey’s plans for the 2026 season are uncertain, but he will have access to two chassis brands for next year’s campaign. The 17-year-old is adding an AK Race Car from Austin Kirkpatrick to the Longhorn Chassis he drove in 2025.
“We've got one on order we're gonna have to kind of play around with and see if we can learn some stuff. We're to test it in January. If we're fast, we're definitely going to run it next year. It'll be nice to have another car though to play around with,” Morey said while standing at the AK Race Car in the Bilstein Shocks booth. "Austin's really smart and I like everything about the car, the safety, everything is just, it's all better, I think.
“Our notebook's bigger with the Longhorn, but I think all Austin needs is just more drivers. So I'm definitely gonna try to run his car as much as I can. I mean, we tested it and we were faster in it, so it makes sense just to run it.”
Morey, who is moving to another shop in Denver, N.C., after sharing space with fellow teen driver Carson Brown in 2025, finished second in rookie points on the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series with a single top-10 finish in 13 feature starts. His highlight of the season came Aug. 30 at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va., with his first career Super Late Model victory in a non-touring event.
“We’ve just got one car, one motor right now. I don't know what we're doing next year,” said Morey, his red hair topped by a Coltman Farms Racing cap. “We're still kind of searching, but I mean we don't have a truck or trailer or really anything, so we're still searching. Every ride that's been open, I've reached out trying to put my name out there that I'm looking, so, I don't know, we're just still kind of waiting. We still got some time. If nothing comes up, we'll probably just do Hunt the Front again and kind of some regional stuff.”
Down Under connections
Mike Nuchols of Warrior Race Cars made his annual PRI pilgrimage and said the Knoxville, Tenn., chassis-building business is steady with eight ordered cars for 2026 and plans to build another seven.
“It's a good living and keeps the new cars out there and helps us build and service the customers we have,” he said. “When you try to get too big, you lose customer service base.”
Nuchols spent part of May in Australia consulting with drivers and plans to return Down Under in March for the continent’s first 100-lap race in Perth.
“I’ve had a good international presence I guess you could say I went back to maybe '14 or ’15. I enjoy their love for racing,” Nuchols said. “So those guys that reach out to me, I reach out to them and it's just continuing to grow and grow and as everybody's seen, I've had international drivers come race with us during the summer for three years now. That’s been fun.”
He’s got two Warrior cars in Australia but consults with as many as 20 drivers in multiple divisions. This season, he hosted Melbourne driver Dylan Barrow, who competed out of Warrior’s shop in July and August, posting four top-five finishes.
“It’s a cool connection,” Nuchols said.
Editor’s note: Kyle McFadden reporting from Indianapolis; remote writing and editing by managing editor Todd Turner along with staff members Kevin Kovac and Aaron Clay.
