Biography

At age 21, Seth Bergman has already crammed much into his resume as a race car driver.

Before he even graduated from Cascade High School, he won Rookie of the Year awards in the 250-Junior and 250-Senior classes, the Most Improved Driver Award at Deming Speedway, and the coveted Northwest Clay Cup Championship. Seth also earned Rookie of the Year in the Sportsmen Sprint class at Skagit Speedway in 2005, where he won three main events.

In 2006, Bergman continued his streak, earning Rookie of the Year honors in the Northern Sprint Tour (now named the NSCS), with one main event victory and a win in a trophy dash.

The son of a stock car driver, Seth decided to put his other sport passions aside to concentrate fully on racing. It was a necessary sacrifice to reach his dream of racing with the pros.

“I want to make this a profession,” said Seth, now an apprentice electrician who works for his father, Steve. “I know it sounds like a long shot, but I’d like to go to NASCAR. That’s every race car driver’s dream, to make it and to make a living out of it. With what happened to my sister, I’d like to make it for her and me. It was her dream, too.”

On May 3, 2001, Seth and his family’s world was rocked when his sister Ashley unexpectedly passed away. Ashley was well on her way to establishing herself as a true competitor in the racing world. Tragically, in her second day of a two-day racing class at Yakima Speedway, her car crashed into a wall. She did not survive the crash. She died in Providence Yakima Medical Center at the age of only 17.

In a very real way, Ashley is with her brother in every race.

“I say prayers before I go out,” Seth said. “I ask her to be there with me. I try not to think about it too much. I try to keep my mind focused on racing, but I definitely feel her presence there with me.”

Ashley’s spirit is anything but a distraction to her brother. He says he uses it to move forward, to go faster on the racetrack. He adds that, while Ashley’s death has affected him in many ways, it never has gripped him with even a trace of fear while in a race car.

To a racer, fear is the stop sign, the red flag. Fear means he should climb out of the car and never look back, for his safety and that of other racers.

“You can get hurt walking across the street or get killed doing anything,” Seth said. “I’m not scared of having a bad accident. You can’t get into the race car with your mind elsewhere. If I go out there thinking that I could get hurt or die, it’ll really throw me off. I’ve never been scared of it and I don’t think I ever will be.”

Not surprisingly, parents Steve and Terri Bergman had many long discussions with their son about the sport. They were understandably torn between their daughter’s accident, their instinctual sense of protecting their son, then 13, and his love for racing. Many people outside the family urged the Bergmans to put an end to Seth’s racing career and to encourage him to find another hobby.

“I told him many times that I’d buy him the best bass boat around if he’d take up fishing,” said Steve Bergman, who owns his son’s car. “But he had already been racing for a while and it was kind of a family deal up until the accident. I had my hope that he wanted to do something else, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do.”

Besides, Steve Bergman said, even if they’d forbidden Seth from driving, he and Terri could clearly sense the probability that Seth would resume racing when he was 18 and on his own.

They decided to leave the decision up to their son.

“I can’t even describe how thankful I am for that,” Seth said.

For now, Seth’s plans include competing on the NSCS tour as well as competing in a handful of World of Outlaws events. The season will once again encompass a trip to Knoxville, Iowa, the Mecca of sprint-car racing, for the Brodix Tournament of Champions winged 360 sprint-car race. This season will also see some new sponsors and promotions, as Seth continues to improve himself on and off the race-track. New colleagues have been added to the racing team, with such ideas as Seth visiting local schools to promote math skills and how they are used while he’s driving. Some major sponsors are also in the works. More details will follow once the formalities are finalized.

With two seasons under his belt now is the time for Seth to shine, and show the world that he is not only one of the premier drivers on the west coast but has the true talent to to make it all the way to Daytona.