Tuner racer Jeremy Hills always had one Chevy Cobalt on a trailer at the ready back at home. That’s what he said it took to make sure he has a piece to race at his home track of Winneshiek Raceway. Twice this year he had to make that hour-long round trip to and back from Postville, Iowa.
“I went home, hooked up to the other trailer with the other car on it, and got back to the track in time to start at the rear of the feature field,” Jeremy says. “I barely made it, but all we had to do is take the car off the trailer and get the tire pressures right and we were ready to go.”
You got to be in it to win it, they say. Jeremy earned five wins, 22 top-fives and 25 top-10s in 28 races this year in USRA competition. He won the track title at Winneshiek Raceway. Jeremy also frequented Fayette County Speedway, where he finished third in points due to a DQ.
“I was leading the race and got DQ’d for reckless driving,” Jeremy says. “Dalton Fels hit me in the right rear. I was trying to save my car, but I put him into the wall. That’s just racing, but they threw us out. He and I always have gotten along. We talked about the crash right after it happened.”
The national points championship came down to Jeremy and Paden Gardner. A racer’s best 25 points-paying races count toward their total. Jeremy had one bad night bringing his total down. He knew he had to run the USRA Nationals at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, to lock up the championship.
“Wheatland was an 8-hour drive for us — that’s a long way for a tuner to haul to a race,” Jeremy says.
The haul was worth it. Jeremy earned 174 points on his first night, erasing his previous worst of 141, and cementing his 2025 USRA national championship. Now Jeremy Hills has his championship-winning cars for sale. His reasons you can see in victory lane: Jaxon, Brysen, Hudson and Heather.
“If I sell one car, I’ll still race the other, locally, in Decorah [at Winneshiek Raceway],” Jeremy says. “Driving to those faraway tracks took too much time away from the family. I have a wife and three children, and I want to spend more time with my family. I’m thankful they supported my run for the championship this year.”
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.
