Bobby Santos III Makes Late Pass for Must See Sprint Series Win at Berlin

A frenetic finsh led Bobby Santos III to victory lane with the Must See Racing Sprint Series presented by Per-Fit Parts on Saturday night at Berlin Raceway.

Ryan Litt led the first 27 laps of the 30-lap feature for the Winged Sprint Car Series at the Michigan oval on Saturday. However, his lead shrank with Santos charging and Litt searching for a way around Bobby Komisarski to put him a lap down.

Litt and Santos ultimately went three-wide around Komisarski with four laps to go, but that maneuver opened the door for Santos to sneak to the inside of Litt one lap later. Santos completed the pass with three laps remaining and pulled away for the victory.

Santos acknowledged that, with the situation they were in, running in second to Litt may have actually given him an advantage in their late-race duel.

"That was tough," said Santos. "Ryan ran such a good race. He had the disadvantage of being the leader. Sometimes being in second is an advantage, and we were lucky for that today. Hats off to Ryan and his team, they ran a great race."

Nevertheless, it was a jubilant victory lane for the team, family and friends, including Santos' son Julian.

"I definitely don't win nearly as many races as we should," said Santos. "I feel like I'm letting these guys down. Julian's winning basketball games and I'm not winning races. We finally won a race for him today."

For Litt, the combination of navigating around Komikarski, losing the handling on his own race car, and trying to hold off Santos simply proved too much.

"When you're the guy chasing first place, you can see everything going on in front," said Litt. "You can kind of go where the leader isn't, right? It's just really unfortunate. We had a great car. It was locked down until, I don't know, 12, 10 to go. It just got super loose in traffic. I was really having trouble getting around Bobby [Komisarski] there. He was smoking the tire and kind of all over the track.

"It's just a bummer. It sucks. I hate getting second. I hate losing like this. Hats off to Bobby, that guy's one of the best in the country. It's no shame losing to those guys, but yeah, it's a bummer for the whole crew. Worked all day, car was perfect all day until about 10 to go when it really counted."

Joe Liguori rounded out the feature podium. He moved up to third after an early exit for Davey Hamliton, Jr. and maintained that position to the finish.

His car wasn't perfect, but he was able to protect the podium finish and bring the No. 68 home in third.

"We were a little down on motor, I think," said Liguori. "Once this thing got up to about 220, this motor always runs hot. I feel like at that point, they were just motoring us. The car still wasn't there, so maybe it wasn't there. I think about halfway, I looked up, we started picking up, not really a tire vibration, but kind of like a weeble-wobble in it.

"I was just babying it there at the end. I had seen once Davey pulled in, I looked at the board and we were running third. I'm like, we've got no pressure, just ride this thing out."

Santos also won the spring race at Berlin one year ago, the first of his three Must See Sprint wins in 2024. He now has 11 career feature wins with the series.

The Must See Racing Sprint Cars return to Michigan on Saturday, June 21, competing at Owosso Speedway on United Way Super Hero Night.

Must See Sprints at Berlin Unofficial Results