Jesse Bernhagen has been racing for more than 20 years, but he certainly felt like a rookie in 2026.
He’s used to driving with his dad serving as crew chief, which has been the case since he started racing at age 5. But this season, for the first time, Bernhagen served in both roles.
“This was the first year that I ran the show myself, and I did all the shop work on the car,” Bernhagen said. “Everything was me. That made it feel like a little bit of a rookie season. It made me feel a little bit more accomplished within it.”
Bernhagen spent the year racing at Dells Raceway Park, a NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts track in Juneau County, Wisconsin. In the track’s NASCAR Regional Gandrud Performance Late Model division, he finished with one win, 10 top fives and 15 top 10s in 17 races.
Bernhagen finished fourth in the final track point standings, sixth in Wisconsin’s NASCAR Division I points, ninth in the Midwest and 23rd in the nation.
And since this was his first year holding a NASCAR license, Bernhagen secured the NASCAR Local Racing Series Division I Rookie of the Year award.
It’s his first time winning a national racing award.
“I wanted it. I knew that we’d be eligible for it, and it was something that I was striving for all year,” he said. “The kid that we were racing out of Oklahoma was hard to beat. It was fun. I’ve never done a national point standings thing like this. It was super, super fun to watch other guys around the country and pay attention to what they were doing on a weekly basis.”
Bernhagen returned to Dells this season after racing at other tracks the last few years. Even though it was a bit of a down year by his usual standards – he won the track title at Dells in 2021 and has more than 50 feature wins in his career – it meant a lot for him to just be able to go back home.
“We really struggled on the new Hoosier D810 tire. It took me until probably late August until I felt like I had a good feel on the car,” he said. “It means a lot whenever you go home. There’s also higher expectations. So then when you’re running fifth and sixth at the start of the year I think frustration kind of grows, so once we finally broke through and won that race in July, it was like, okay, we can still do this. We’ve still got it, we’ve got to just keep working at it to make the car even better.”
It also, understandably, took Bernhagen time to get used to his new dual role as driver and crew chief.
“There’s so much more that goes into it when you’re thinking about the tires and you’re thinking about everything as I’m out there driving,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for forever, and I know what my dad does in that role, I know what the crew chief does. But when you get out of the car and now have to do all those things like get the tires mounted, stretch the tires, make sure that the air pressures are where you want them, constantly hem and haw in your head over if you want to put wedge in the car or not because you’re kind of predicting which way the tire is going to grow or shrink or whatever.
“It’s just a lot more happening inside your head during the race day when you’re doing both.”
Oftentimes on race days, Bernhagen would get so caught up in preparing the car he would forget to eat before strapping in. There were multiple times he had to remind himself to grab a quick bite before the race began.
Doing both jobs was stressful at times, but Bernhagen said it made him a better driver.
“It gave me a better understanding,” he said. “I wish I would have been doing it forever. It just gave me a better sense of control over what was going on, and then when we came to pit stops or between race adjustments when you had limited time, those were moments where I could make the calls on the race track. Not relay what was happening and then hope that he agreed. I was like, I know what I want to do. Talking to the crew guys, I know exactly what wrenches to tell them to grab and everything over the headsets and they can just be ready to go when the car stops.”
Bernhagen’s dad still helps on the car and keeps it at his house. He has other crew members who have been with him for several years. A number of them were once his students in the classroom. Bernhagen is a former social studies teacher and is now a middle school principal. He often tries to find students who are into cars and get them involved in the sport.
His career as a race-car driver isn’t something he likes to talk about much at school, and Bernhagen said he sometimes feels like Hannah Montana when his second career gets referenced.
“I think the kids don’t really understand it until they see it,” he said. “This year we had one of the teachers on my staff come to the July 11th race that we won, and she brought her kids. It’s always better when you win, but they’re automatically blown away by, Mr. Bernhagen drives a race car. Cool. Now when you go and watch it and you see cars beating fenders and guys passing each other and see the speed and everything up close, it just adds another element of how different it actually is. It’s a very unspoken thing during the school day, but I definitely work in a lot of life lessons that racing has taught me into when I talk with the kids and just trying to make them the best that they can be every day, too.
“Anything that we can do to get more people to the track is needed.”
Bernhagen reveled in the opportunity to come back home and race this season at the track where he made his name. He’s also proud to have a national award to add to his collection.
“At the end of the day, there are so many talented drivers out there that winning something at the national level takes a massive effort and takes a lot of hard work,” he said. “I think when you’re able to talk to potential partners and sponsors, and just people that are out in the community, and say we won this NASCAR national level recognition, I think that that speaks volumes to how cool it is, the things that we do on a weekend that we just feel are so run of the mill. Because we do it every weekend and we’ve been doing it forever, but when you’re able to add that extra take onto it, it just elevates things to a different level and makes you kind of sit back and appreciate what you do a little bit more.
“It was a cool year the closer that we got to it, and the more often that you’re able to say we are a NASCAR rookie of the year now, it just rings a little bit differently.”