When you win championships year after year like Dustin Gulbrandson has done, does it become old hat? Not this year, his ninth USRA national championship. Why? Because this one was special because of “My Bentley,” Dustin said. Bentley isn’t his car, but instead his son.
“He’s 18 months old and already trying to put lug nuts on,” Dustin, of Tea, South Dakota, said. “He just loves racing and being at the racetracks.”
Dustin and his fiancée, Jasmine, welcomed Bentley into the world in 2024. Ever since then, he’s become a fixture in his pit — and in victory lane. For Dustin’s 19 hobby stock wins, Bentley was in victory lane for every one of them.
“Bentley was the driving force in those wins,” Dustin said. “He wanted to win more than me.”
With a new kid, Dustin decided to race as close to home as possible.
“Rapid Speedway is our home track,” Dustin said. “Winning 11 of the 14 races there and finishing second the other three times helped us in national points.”
As the season progressed, he found himself in the points chase.
“We just went racing, and raced as much as we could, trying to stay local,” Dustin said. “We decided if we were close to winning the championship at the end of the season, we would go for it.”
In the end, he topped second-place Joshua Monson by a healthy 304 margin.
Dustin Gulbrandson built a brand-new street stock this year, testing the waters with it at Huset’s Speedway and I-90 Speedway. He just raced it 12 times, but brought home a $5,000 victory at Huset’s.
“Next year I would like to focus more on the street stock,” Dustin said. “I still enjoy driving my hobby stock, though, and I’ll probably still race it more than most of the drivers in the division.”
Whatever Dustin races, you’ll be sure to see Bentley with him, too, especially if that involves a trip to victory lane.
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.
