Hobby stock racer Dustin Gulbrandson now owns eight USRA national championships. What made this one different? He and his girlfriend, Jasmine Kalass, had a baby boy in May.
“Bentley popped out early,” Dustin, of Tea, South Dakota, said. “He was in the NICU for more than a month. He turned out to be a good luck charm.”
A new kid certainly increases the responsibilities for a racer. Fortunately, Jasmine came from a racing family and raced in enduros.
“Jasmine understands that racing is a big part of our lives,” said Dustin. “We’ve invested a lot of time and money into our racing program. She’s been there for me, doing the tires and washing the car. She said, ‘Don’t worry, go racing.’ It was so tough for her not to be at the track.”
By July, Jasmine returned to the track, with baby Bentley in tow, cheering on their favorite driver.
Gulbrandson used to race close to home, but this year ventured out a bit. He hauled three-and-a-half hours to Mason City Motor Speedway in Iowa and Deer Creek Speedway in Minnesota. The team even went as far as four-and-half hours to Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Wisconsin.
“At Deer Creek Speedway, we led in points all season,” Dustin said. “On the final night, we broke a ball joint while leading the feature and lost the track championship. We went the whole season with no issues, and then one little issue wiped out our whole season there.”
That’s just how competitive the hobby stock scene is. Dustin Gulbrandson did win the track title at Mason City, and, of course, the USRA national title. In total, he came home with 21 feature victories.
“Bentley was there, and he wanted us to win races,” said Dustin. “And we did just that to win the championship.”
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.
