With longtime sponsor Budweiser on its way out and the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Top Fuel world championship seemingly out of reach, Brandon Bernstein is ready to turn the page. The last two seasons have been a struggle for the second-generation racer, his recent victory at the NHRA Virginia Nationals notwithstanding. But with a new sponsor, Copart, signed for 2010, Bernstein can’t wait to begin the next chapter in his family’s voluminous drag racing history.

“The last two seasons haven’t been the best,” admitted Bernstein, whose overdue victory in Richmond ended a 52-race winless streak. “We finished seventh last year, and who knows where we’ll finish this year, but next year is going to be a new chapter for Kenny Bernstein Racing, and we’re really looking forward to it.”

Bernstein, who took over the driving duties for his father’s team in 2003, was runner-up eight times between his victory in Brainerd in 2007 and his 18th and most recent triumph in Richmond, which tied him with the legendary Shirley Muldowney for Top Fuel victories. Prior to his two-year slump, Bernstein had won in 17 of his 23 final-round appearances, including eight of his first nine. He won five of his first 13 races, the best start in Top Fuel history, en route to winning the 2003 Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award, which recognizes NHRA’s top rookie.

“I don’t know that I can really explain it,” said Bernstein, who won three of the first eight races in 2003 before a crash in Englishtown ended his season. “We just had really good success in the final. When we’d get to the final, it just seemed like Tim [Richards, former crew chief] had a really good handle on the racetrack, and he knew what to do. But we knew that was going to end eventually; we knew the time would come when we wouldn’t win every time we got to the final. You need some luck, too, and we were just unfortunate that for the longest time, we didn’t get the break that we needed.”

Brandon Bernstein has been to five finals this season and sits fifth in Top Fuel points.

Though Bernstein would likely have won the final in Richmond anyway – he was nearly six-hundredths of a second quicker out of the gate and ran a 3.84 – but when his final-round opponent, Antron Brown, blew the tires off at the hit of the throttle, Bernstein’s long-awaited victory was assured.

“It feels great,” said Bernstein, who after finishing third in 2006 and 2007 with a combined nine wins in 14 final rounds dropped to seventh last year with an 0-4 final-round record and was 0-4 this year before his win. “It’s just one of those deals where we’ve tried for two years to win one, and we’ve been in situations where we’ve had a chance, but we just hadn’t been able to kick that door down and get the win. Sometimes you just get in a rut, and you can’t get out of it. Hopefully, now that we’re out of it we can move on and get a lot more.”

Bernstein’s victory in Richmond was the team’s 86th under the Budweiser banner. Budweiser was with Bernstein’s father, Kenny, for all six of his NHRA world titles – four in Funny Car (1985-88) and two in Top Fuel (1996 and 2001) – and that relationship continued when Bernstein took over the driving duties in 2003. Now in its 30th and final year, Budweiser’s relationship with the team is the longest sponsorship in motorsports history, surpassing the 28-year relationship STP had with Richard Petty.

“To be with one sponsor for 30 years is unheard of,” said Bernstein. “The people at Anheuser-Busch were like family to us, and to see our relationship finally come to an end is kind of sad. It’s going to be different to not put on a red shirt and go out there and try to sell Budweiser, but we’re really excited about Copart, and they’re really jazzed. Jay Adair, the president, is new to the sport, but he’s really latched on to it. His whole team is excited about the sport and about being affiliated with Kenny Bernstein Racing. It’s a one-year deal, but hopefully we can get them to stay on. Heck, maybe we can get them to stay for 30 years just like Budweiser.”

At the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil, Brandon and Kenny Bernstein flanked Copart President Jay Adair and CEO Willis Johnson after they announced Copart's new sponsorship of the Bernstein team beginning in 2010.

Eight months after InBev, a Belgian beer company, purchased Anheuser-Busch in July 2008, the American beer giant announced that it would no longer sponsor the team after the 2009 season. Six months later, the team named Copart, an online vehicle remarketing company, as its primary sponsor beginning in 2010. That announcement, made during the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil, ended months of uncertainty about the team’s future.

“We had an inkling that we might not get renewed,” said Bernstein. “Still, it was a little bit of a shock when they actually told us. We had everybody and anybody trying to find something because without a major sponsor, we weren’t going to go on. Once we knew we had a sponsor, it was a huge relief.”

Though Bernstein admitted that not knowing whether he would be racing in 2010 was a distraction, he doesn’t believe it affected his or his team’s performance under first-year crew chief Rob Flynn, who replaced longtime tuners Tim and Kim Richards this season after three-plus years with David Powers Motorsports.

Crew chief Rob Flynn, right, and Bernstein would like to finish out their 2009 campaign, the team's last with Budweiser, with more wins.

“The money was still there for this year, so it’s not like we didn’t have the funds to perform at the level that my dad wants us to perform at,” said Bernstein. “It’s just part of racing. Obviously, it affects you because you’re thinking about it and wondering if you’re going to have a job next year, but I tried to put that out of my mind. I think I can honestly say that I was more concerned about trying to win a championship. If we didn’t have something by October or November, that’s when I was really going to start worrying.”

With his RIchmond victory, Bernstein jumped from seventh to fifth in the Countdown to 1. But with just two races remaining and a 120-point deficit to overcome, Bernstein knows his odds of winning the championship are not good.

“We have to go to Vegas and Pomona and win; that’s the bottom line,” said Bernstein. “We have to win both races, and we have to have some help. We just need to do our part and see where the cards fall.”