One name that has long been synonymous with Berlin Raceway‘s vibrant local racing culture is Tim DeVos.
The first victory DeVos earned at Berlin came on June 5, 1982, and kickstarted a proud tradition of success that persists today. DeVos holds the record for most wins at Berlin with 127, all while amassing five track championships between four different divisions.
En route to winning Berlin’s sportsman title this year, DeVos also earned his second NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts national championship, this time in Division III. The first national title for DeVos was in Division II, which came during the 2022 season following a dominant campaign in Berlin’s limited late model class that saw him win 10 times across 24 features.
This year, the 70-year-old DeVos found Victory Lane 12 times while utilizing his familiar No. 12; which was about as fitting of a conclusion to a near-perfect season as the veteran racer could have imagined.
“I would say that’s a smoking year,” DeVos said. “We won [the national championship] back in 2022, but with that one, we didn’t find out we were running that good until right near the end. The track said we were leading regional and were close on national. We picked up the pace, worked extra hard on it and got the national too.”
RELATED: Final NASCAR Local Racing Series Division III standings
The catalyst behind such a long, storied career for DeVos at Berlin was a raise he received from his boss Jack Theeuwes, a racer who utilized a collection of colorful pseudonyms during his career; primarily J.T. Hoff.
DeVos recalls how Theeuwes got tired of him ‘beating the crap out of his pick-up truck,’ so he was offered a raise of $3 an hour if he agreed to build Hoff a competitive race car. Nearly every Saturday, DeVos would ride in Theeuwes’ truck to Berlin and regularly assisted his boss on race days whenever he didn’t have a crew available.
As time passed, DeVos’ passion for building race cars continued to grow, which made him want to pursue the hobby as a career. The first car DeVos built was a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro before later constructing newer models.
Looks were not at the forefront of DeVos’ mind when it came to building cars back then. If it could win races, that was all that mattered.
“It was still junk,” DeVos said. “It was a terrible mess. It was the worst looking car on the track by far, but we were busy concentrating on trying to make it fast rather than trying to make it pretty. We didn’t have no time to spend on making it pretty.”
DeVos took advice from anyone around him to figure out how to make the cars he was preparing go just a little bit faster. He kept that mindset when he decided to follow Theeuwes’ example and test his luck behind the wheel at Berlin.
The path to more than 100 victories and five track championships at Berlin was never going to be easy for DeVos. Berlin’s local divisions were filled with numerous blue-collar, hard-nosed competitors during DeVos’ formative years.
From DeVos’ perspective, there was a simple method to get an edge over his competition: find his own way around Berlin.
“The main thing was getting out on track, studying what everybody else does, where they’re faster, where they’re slower,” DeVos said. “Everybody’s pretty dang good [at Berlin] off the corner, so I changed my style completely and tried racing into the corner. They were all good on the bottom, so I tried getting into the corner on the top.
“That’s kind of become my signature move; hard into the corners on the top side and rolling up alongside. I’m kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time pointed in the wrong direction, but I just mess their whole line up too at the same time.”
DeVos views his racing line as a high risk, high reward concept. More times than not, DeVos would be collected in a wreck that took him out of championship contention, but the time spent away from Berlin repairing cars was never wasted. He would always come back ready to race for wins.
Because of that mindset, DeVos prioritized victories over championships. Yet the seasons where everything did fall in line were always a special occasion worth celebrating.
DeVos knows better than anyone else how hard it can be to find success at Berlin, but his own tribulations have extended beyond the track. In 2012, a house fire severely damaged DeVos’ outlaw late model, with the engine being the only item he salvaged from the chassis.
The outlaw class is where DeVos has the most Berlin titles with two, so he naturally wanted to find a way back into that division. A close friend of DeVos’ offered him one of his Outlaws, opening the door for his return to outlaw competition at Berlin in 2026.
While DeVos was busy locking down Berlin’s sportsman title, he reminded everyone of his efficiency in an outlaw by setting the track record in the division on July 4 with a 14.736-second lap. The record only stood for two months, as Tyler Roarhig later bested him with a 14.687-second lap.
Being efficient in both the sportsman and outlaw classes in his 70s is something DeVos does not take for granted. Even with all the changes at both Berlin and within the racing industry, DeVos said many of the techniques used in his formative years are still apply in the modern era.
From DeVos’ experience, the success comes at a small price. There are those who think he is too good, but DeVos tries his best to brush off the noise and just focus on what works for him.
“It kind of sucks, really,” DeVos said. “[The competition accuses] you of cheating continuously. Every time the nose drags the ground, they’re all crying about it. My car always passed tech just fine. I never had any issues in tech all year. I’m known to work the grey areas pretty heavy.
“If it doesn’t say you can’t, in my opinion you can until they say you can’t.”
Despite the criticism that he feels is unwarranted, especially since he is an advocate for rule changes in the name of fairness, DeVos cherishes every chance he gets at Berlin to show the newer generation he is still one of the best.
More than four decades after his first Berlin triumph, DeVos has another NASCAR Local Racing Series national championship to go along with his fifth track title and a Midwest Regional crown in Division III. He also scored the most points of any NASCAR Local Racing Series national champion this year with 448.
DeVos would love to add a Division I title alongside Division II and III, but he admitted that would be a tough ask in multiple aspects.
Berlin’s top-tier super late model class features plenty of talented competitors like reigning track champion Brian Campbell, Austin Hull, Evan Shotko and others. Even if DeVos could beat them consistently, he feels Berlin may need more races on their schedule for him to acquire enough points on a national scale.
Still, DeVos is open to giving the super late model division a shot. He hopes to get his super late model program up and running for 2027 alongside his limited late model, the latter of which he raced at Berlin twice this year.
DeVos is also keeping the door open on defending his sportsman title and running more outlaw races at Berlin, but he has a long offseason to ponder his options. Whatever title he pursues, DeVos will be ready to give it his all like has been for countless years.
The Berlin sportsman title, along with the Division III national and regional championships, went relatively smooth for DeVos, but he knows next year could be an entirely different story. Countless laps around Berlin have taught DeVos that winning anything requires patience, hard work and a little bit of luck.
No accomplishment has come easy for DeVos, but he is thankful Berlin and NASCAR provide him a platform for him to live out his passion of being a competitive racer.
“I like what NASCAR does for the whole program,” DeVos said. “There’s a lot of things we didn’t have before and it really heightens the competition and makes you try harder. Even if you’re leading the national points, it could all go away in a heartbeat. It doesn’t take long to lose it, so it makes you hunker down.”
A lot has changed for DeVos since he climbed into a car at Berlin for the first time; there is a lot more technology that goes into racing and the names he races are all different. Yet DeVos’ determined, creative drive remains intact and has yielded him another successful season around the facility that defined him.
For as long as he is able and willing, DeVos plans to keep building upon his legendary reputation as one of Berlin’s most loyal and accomplished competitors.