At one point this summer, Sam Butler was watching a Facebook Live video with media members and who they would consider the “Big 3” drivers at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Two of the three were obvious choices. Josh Berry went on to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I national championship, and Ryan Millington finished third while also winning the late model track championship.

The other driver in the Big 3 though came as a surprise to 16-year-old Butler. It was his name in that conversation.

In his first year in a late model, Butler proved to be a force to be reckoned with at Hickory, finishing third in the track‘s late model points and seventh in the national Division I points. His three wins and 13 top fives in 23 starts were enough to help Butler to a Jostens Division I Rookie of the Year and UNOH Youth Achievement Award, given annually to the top driver in the country under the age of 16.

Butler made a weekly 10-hour trip from his Indiana home to Hickory, North Carolina this season to race against the top competition in the country. His goal at the beginning of the season was to just win rookie of the year at the track, but there was a point about midway through the summer when he started to dream a little bigger.

“We started running up front with Josh Berry and Ryan Millington, and I was like, wow, I would have never thought coming into this year I would be running with them ahead of everybody else. It was just kind of an insane thing that I couldn‘t really wrap my head around until the end of the year,” Butler said.

Butler has been driving for about eight years, starting out in a quarter midget then moving on to a legends car. He‘s the first in his family to giving racing a try.

“I‘ve always been into cars since I was little, but never really understood why,” he said. “It was kind of weird growing up just liking cars. I was trying to get into basketball and football and everything but it didn‘t click with me, but I saw the bandolero on TV and I was like, ‘I want to do that.‘ And my dad looked up racing around me and we found quarter-midgets.”

Butler is used to traveling the country to race, having gone to Arizona and Las Vegas in previous years, so the trips to Hickory weren‘t too far out of his comfort zone. For him, the traveling was so he could learn the ropes in a late model at one of the toughest short tracks on the East Coast.

“It was definitely a learning curve, especially saving tires and everything because you have such a bigger car with a bigger tires that can get hot a lot faster. It‘s a lot different from the previous car I drove. These kind of just float in, they kind of drive themselves honestly. It‘s more of a mental learning curve with the late model because of all the laps you have to drive and the tires you have to save.”

Butler said he and his team didn‘t start the year as well as they finished, but he learned a lot from the late model veterans he raced against. He talks to Millington on a daily basis, and would watch him and Berry during practices and races.

“It was a lot easier to learn the track when you have two really good drivers to work off of,” Butler said. “Ryan and Josh, I would talk to them between practices and qualifying and just kind of ask them what they‘re doing, how‘s their car, what do you think I have to do to improve, stuff like that. Especially just being in the car during the feature, if I can‘t figure something out then I‘ll probably just kind of look ahead and see what Josh is doing and try to learn from what he‘s doing, or Ryan. They definitely helped a lot.”

Finding success and gaining national recognition gives Butler confidence as he moves into 2021.

He‘ll stay in the same car with his team, including car owner Zach Bruenger, crew chief Steven Civitarese, and crew members Zach McDaniels and Zach Wyatt, racing with PRW Chassis and Triple R Racing.

“They‘ve done an outstanding job for me this year,” Butler said of his team. “They‘ve worked their butts off. I was down there for three weeks and how much work they put into my car was insane so I would just like to thank them a lot.

“Coming into next year I feel like we have a really good car and I have a really good team to do it with. Unlike other years, I have a lot of confidence going into this next year. I feel like we‘ll be able to run up front and be competitive.”

From a young kid watching racing on TV to doing it himself, Butler plans to be in the sport for a long time to come.

“It‘s mind-boggling for me just to think that a few years ago I was just racing for fun and racing with my buddies that I still have today, and now I‘m racing and NASCAR is calling me,” Butler said. “I would have never thought that. It‘s so hard to put it in words. It‘s just been a huge part of my life and truly I don‘t think I could live without it.”

It took Chris Vannausdle 29 years of racing to get a single championship.

In 2020 he won not only his first title, but a total of three, including the biggest of all — a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V national championship.

Vannausdle had nine wins and 19 top-five finishes in 20 starts while racing a sports compact at Adams County Speedway, in Iowa, and 1-80 Speedway, in Nebraska. He also won the title at both tracks.

“A lot of weight off my shoulders after a lot of years,” Vannausdle said.

Vannausdle said he felt like he got lucky a lot this season. A lot of bad things happened to the car, but they happened after the race was over. In one race he lost a motor as he was crossing the finish line — he still won that night‘s race.

Even though the Nebraska driver won the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national championship by 50 points, the season was over for Vannausdle with about a month left before the official end of the NASCAR points season. He wasn‘t able to find any tracks where he could race, so he instead had to keep watching other drivers creep towards him at the top of the points standings.

“We had a good feeling that it was going to be hard to do, but then when (third place finisher) Megan Fuller and a few of those people from Stafford and Massachusetts starting working their way up it was like, ‘Okay, they‘re gaining a lot of points. My wife kind of figured if she (Fuller) won out she would still be 32 points out.

“Until you see the end hit, yes it is nerve-wracking after all those years of being that close.”

Vannausdle finally received the call from NASCAR one day while he was at work.

“I was like, ‘Who the heck is this number?‘” he said. “He left a voicemail, I called him back. As soon as he started congratulating me I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome.‘”

Challenging for titles but coming up short for nearly three decades changed Vannausdle‘s perspective on points racing.

“As you get older it‘s like, ‘Well it should happen but if it doesn‘t there‘s always another time,‘” he said.

Now that is has happened, he had planned on slowing down in 2021. He said he won‘t run two tracks again, as one is two hours away from his home.

His plans could change once the season gets closer, though. After working towards a championship for so long, he now has some he needs to defend.

“My wife is already talking about doing this and doing that and getting things ready to go. So I guess we‘re going to,” he said.

“Thanks to all my friends and family that have helped me through the years. We‘ve got some pictures we took on championship night of me and my boys and daughters and my grandkids and all my friends that have helped me through the years in one big picture. It‘s just pretty cool that everybody was celebrating. Knowing how we fought through the years to get this done.”

MORE DIVISION V

The Vannausdle family was well-represented in the final Division V points standings. Chris Vannausdle‘s son, Bryan, finished fourth in the points.

Bryan Vannausdle was fifth in the Brandon Towing and Recover Compacts Division at Adams County Speedway, and sixth in the Sport Compact division at I-80. He had 13 top-5s in 20 starts this season.

Zachary Robinson finished second, Meg Fuller third, and Chris Meyer fifth in the final Division V standings. All three race in the Street Stock Division at Connecticut‘s Stafford Motor Speedway. Robinson, who had four wins, 11 top fives, and 12 top 10s, won his second straight track title by 14 points over Meyer and 14 over Fuller.

Meyer posted a pair of victories on the season, while Fuller had four.

Three of the top six drivers in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV points standings all raced at Salina Highbanks Speedway.

A tough field, but one driver drove his way to the front of the pack.

Brady Walsh won in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV national championship, besting his trackmate, Jordon Shive, by 44 points. Walsh won eight races and finished in the top five in all 15 of his starts this season.

Even though Walsh made winning a regular thing this summer, getting to Victory Lane at Salina was anything but easy.

“The top 10 cars or so, any of us can win on any given night,” Walsh told NASCAR.com earlier this season. “It‘s really a tight race every week and it‘s a lot of fun getting to race with those guys.”

Walsh won the S&J Plumbing Pure Stocks track championship at Salina, the second of his career. His previous best finish in the national points was fourth in 2014.

Walsh is a second generation driver at Salina. His dad raced at the track that is about 30 minutes from his home, and he grew up watching races there.

“He always raced stock cars and stuff so that kind of interested me to get into it,” Walsh said of his dad. “I wanted to follow his footsteps and the way he did it a little bit.

“We‘ve spent a lot of days and nights at Salina just watching races and hanging out in the pits and everything.”

Walsh got into the sport watching his dad, and now the duo work together on his car along with many other members of the family. His dad is the crew chief, and Walsh‘s wife, Kimber, mom, brother-in-law, and sister also make the family team a true family operation.

“Everyone comes out and helps. It‘s definitely a team effort. There‘s no ‘just me’ about it. It‘s definitely a full team,” Walsh said. “It makes it awesome that it‘s something that the whole family can enjoy. It just makes it that much more special when you win.”

Walsh said earlier this season something just clicked with the car this year and it took off, but the amount of success he‘s found has definitely added to the fun of racing.

“It makes it awesome,” he said. “I‘m racing what I‘d like to think is some of the top stock car drivers in Oklahoma. And just being able to compete like we have been has been just a really, really awesome thing.”

MORE FROM DIVISION IV

Salina had two drivers atop the national standings. Shive finished second, 44 points behind Walsh. Shive had three wins and 13 top fives in 15 starts this season. Shive was also second to Walsh in Salina‘s pure stock standings.

Kingsport Speedway‘s Pure 4 champion, Billy Byington, finished third in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series points standings. Byington had four wins and 12 top-five finishes in 12 starts at the Tennessee track.

New Hampshire drivers Gordon Farnum and Nathan Wenzel rounded out the top five. Farnum finished second in Monadnock Speedway‘s Mini Stock points, and also raced at Hudson and Claremont Speedways. He had six wins and 13 top fives between the three tracks.

Wenzel won the track championship at Monadnock. He finished the year with two wins and 11 top fives.

Jon Quinton went into 2020 with modest, attainable goals of simply winning some races.

Once he realized those initial goals were realized early, he moved the goalposts, and kept moving them.

By the end of the year, Quinton was a national champion.

Quinton won Denny‘s Mini Stocks championship at Magic Valley Speedway in Twin Falls, Idaho, and his six wins and 20 top-5s in 20 starts were enough to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III title.

Quinton didn‘t even know NASCAR was going to be having a national points race this season, but when he learned the national championship was happening, and was within his reach, he went points racing.

“It is different. Absolutely different,” Quinton said. “It was interesting. It was stressful for sure. Very stressful.”

Quinton only raced his home track, but he still felt confident as the season wound down, even as more NASCAR-points chasers made their way to Idaho and the car count grew.

As the fall and end of the year got closer, Quinton had to watch the points closely and just hope for the best.

“I felt like I had it,” he said. “I didn‘t know that the points ended on October 18. I thought they were going to end the next week.

“On Thursday morning I got the phone call from NASCAR. He called me and I was pretty excited. It was awesome.”

The call was still unexpected.

“I had to stop,” Quinton said. “I was at home and my girlfriend was with me and I stopped and I asked him, ‘Is it okay if I put you on speakerphone? Can you say that one more time?‘

“It was really awesome. I‘m waiting for it all to sink in. I think when I get the plaque and things like that it‘ll sink in a little more that I‘m one of five drivers that gets all this. That I did it this year. It‘s really awesome.”

Quinton credited his newfound success with getting some of his aggression back on the track.

“Being passive will put you in a bad spot. I found that out previous years,” Quinton said. “So I got some of my aggression back and really attacked the track and the race car and it‘s just amazing. We far surpassed our goals and I‘m just happy to have a racecar that is still in one piece this year, that I can adjust on and bring back next year.”

Quinton said he was thankful to Magic Valley and the track‘s owner, Eddy McKean, for giving him and the rest of the track‘s drivers a place to race during a difficult year.

“I know that was difficult for him and we did not have the turnout that we‘ve had previous years with spectators, so I‘m glad we were able to get this national recognition for him,” Quinton said.

The national recognition has come with a lot of congratulations from friends and fans on social media. Quinton‘s sister put out a championship video, which has been well-received.

Even though Quinton is proud to be a national champion, he said he doesn‘t think he‘ll try for a national or even a local championship next year. He plans to back off and travel around the west to bigger races.

For now, though, he‘ll continue to revel in a championship that he didn‘t even know was possible.

After starting the year with simple goals of just reaching victory lane, seeing those goals surpassed is still beyond Quinton‘s wildest imagination.

“To me, not knowing that this was a possibility, not really even thinking of it, I knew it was out there but it was so far out there at the beginning of the year, it doesn‘t feel real,” he said.

MORE DIVISION III

Stafford Motor Speedway‘s Derek Debbis finished the season with two second place finishes in both the Stafford track standings and the NAAPWS Division III points. Debbis, a rookie, finished the year with five wins and 10 top-5s in 15 starts. He was 18 points behind Quinton.

Irwindale Speedway in California posted two top-4 national finishers in Division III. Rodney Argo had six wins and nine top-5s for a third place finish, and Bobby Ozman had one win and 12 top-5 finishes to come in fourth.

Ozman won Irwindale‘s Tucker Tire Enduro Sport track championship, and Argo finished third.

Quinton was joined by fellow Magic Valley drivers Chad Everett and Cecil Miles in the final national points standings. Everett finished 5th and Miles 6th. The two had six and five wins on the season, respectively.

The final race of the season at Claremont Motorsports Park saw the top three drivers in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II standings face off.

Jerod Weston finished tenth. Adam Gray finished sixth. David Greenslit took the checkered flag at the New Hampshire short track.

A week later, Greenslit was named Division II national champion.

The national championship was the icing on top of a career season for Greenslit, who drove street stocks at Claremont where he was track champion, and won the “Battle of the Belt” championship for the driver with the most points between four tracks in New Hampshire — Claremont, Monadnock, Lee USA, and Hudson Speedways.

Greenslit won the national championship by just two points over Gray — one position on the track.

Even with 12 wins and 20 top-five finishes in 23 starts this season, Greenslit still said the national title was a huge surprise. He knew he would likely have to win the final race of the season, given the good competition he was up against, but a win didn‘t guarantee him anything.

“I wasn’t actually sure if I had won the national championship until a week and a half later when it finally came out and I got a call,” Greenslit said.

“It was actually pretty surprising. I was sitting in my tree stand and my phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing and I got a couple texts from Mike at Claremont saying, ‘Hey, you need to answer your phone. NASCAR is trying to get a hold of you.‘”

Greenslit was sponsored by Vermont Cabinetry, Backwoods Trophy Outfitters, and LFOD Motorsports, who are building him a brand new car now.

Since the announcement, Greenslit said he‘s had a lot of people calling and congratulating him, and had some new sponsors stepping up wanting to support him next season.

The New Hampshire driver plans to run Claremont and Hudson full time next season, and plans to try to defend his Battle of the Belt Championship. While he‘s already making plans for 2021, he‘s going to relish in his 2020 “dream season” a little longer.

“It was unreal. It was an awesome season,” he said. “It was like a dream. A dream season.”

MORE FROM DIVISION II

Gray finished the 2020 season second in the national points. His six wins and 11 top five finishes in 15 starts were enough for a track championship at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway by 54 points in the track‘s late model division.

Weston won the track championship in Iowa’s Adams County Speedway’s O‘Reilly Auto Parts B Modifieds division. He finished the year with six NASCAR wins and 12 top-five finishes in 13 starts, and was third in the final NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national standings.

Willie Gammill was fourth, winning seven races in 15 starts at Salina Highbanks Speedway in Oklahoma, where he was track champion in the AmeriFlex Hose and Accessories B-Mods division.

Gammill also finished second in Salina‘s Dawson Roofing Super Stocks Division.

New Hampshire driver Jaret Curtis finished fourth in Division II, with three wins and 16 top fives in 18 NASCAR starts. Curtis finished second in the Street Stocks division at Monadnock Speedway.