After 10 years in the hobby stocks, Tyler Pospisil traded what he had for an IMCA stock car. That move paid off. As a rookie, he won his first stock car feature last Saturday at Worthington Speedway in Minnesota.
“I found a guy who wanted a hobby stock and he had a stock car,” Pospisil, 30, of Worthington, Minnesota, said. “We made an even trade — my car and all its parts for his car and all its parts. It didn’t cost me a dime to move up.”
Pospisil made his stock car debut earlier this year during the Bristol Dirt Nationals at Bristol Motor Speedway. He finished 10th in Saturday’s B-feature at the Tennessee half-mile. Pospisil’s first victory came on his 26th night of racing.
“The win was so important to me — I proved to myself that I could run up front with the stock car racers and be a contender,” said Pospisil. “The competition was stout.”
Pospisil enjoys racing the stock cars.
“The stock car is so much fun to drive,” Pospisil said. “The fun factor is larger because when you make changes to the car, it responds. You can feel its reaction, and you are able to manipulate the car to work the way you need it to.”
Pospisil arrived at Worthington Speedway with help from Josh Van Westen. His other crew members were unable to attend due to family commitments. Van Westen could only dedicate part of his time as he raced his sport mod that same night.
While Tyler Pospisil has two children — Aiden, 10 and Kaylie, 6 — and a full-time job as a tire salesman, he’s on pace to race 50 events this season.
“It helps when you have tracks 10 minutes to a half-hour from home,” said Pospisil. “We’ll race on weeknights, too. Hopefully, this win is a sign of things to come.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
