Brian Campbell Aims to Defend Home Turf in MITB

The Money in the Bank at Berlin Raceway is a personal point of pride for two-time winner and 2021 track champion Brian Campbell.

Despite entry lists that routinely contain Cup Series stars or traveling national Super Late Model contenders, the No. 47 has won Money in the Bank twice, the inaugural Rowdy 251 in 2009 that later became the Battle at Berlin, and over a dozen touring series victories across ASA, CRA and Midwest Tour sanctioning over the years.

He has defeated the likes of Kyle Busch, Erik Jones and Bubba Pollard during the time and really steps up his program when it comes to the biggest races of the year at the West Michigan bullring.

“We enjoy the competition,” Campbell said. “We wish everyone would come. I want the NASCAR guys to come, the traveling guys. We really put an extra step into our program for these big races.”

Campbell has two CRA Super Series championships and is the winningest driver in the CRA JEGS Pro Late Model Tour history. So he’s more than capable of traveling out of his native Michigan and contending for wins, but has really enjoyed winning races at a nice facility for good money without even driving 30 combined minute each weekend.

“Berlin is my home track but not my favorite to race,” Campbell said. “However, Berlin does so many good things for the fans and racers, it is hard to leave the place. I am there all the time, as I live 15 minutes from the track. It’s kind of hard to not race there. 75 laps for $4,000 a night is not bad.”

With that said, he is also monitoring the Super Late Model landscape with both a ASA STARS national tour and the SRL National tour. He is still intrigued by the idea of running a tour someday soon but wants to see how things shake out.

“Oh yeah, it interests me right now,” Campbell said. “What I don’t like is having all these series and they’re not on board with one another. That makes it really hard for people to travel to both and you’re giving people a reason to stay home when you feel like you’ve having to choose between one or the other.

“With this race a SRL race, we’re here because we’re 10 minutes from home. So, Berlin is making it easy and the two series are making it a bit harder. I’ll say this: We’re monitoring, looking and watching and would love to travel more in the future. Everything just has to line up better than it does right now.”

As for this week, Campbell has been racing with a built Super motor this year at Berlin, even though it is competitive with a crate with the Berlin rules package.

It’s a package he is still trying to perfect entering the first of two big races at Berlin.

“Drivability of the car,” Campbell said when asked what he’s working on. “Just making sure we’re note racing right now from week-to-week. These guys are coming in fresh with a fresh set of tires, so they have fresh ideas.

“That’s good and bad for us. We have a mindset of where we want to go but these guys have to be more open-minded, they have no pre-conceived notions of what to do, and that could help or hurt.

“You know, you get someone like William Byron come in here last year and they just rocked us out. It was awesome. Then came the 251, and the local Berlin guys handled them. So that could be the case this week, or these guys could come in and beat us up, because they’re not dummies. They’re really good.”

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