In 2021, Dustin Puffe hit rock bottom in his fight against alcoholism. However, he didn’t stay there. Dustin climbed his way back, staying sober and winning the WISSOTA pure stock national championship.
“My dad did not like me drinking,” Dustin, of Laporte, Minnesota, says. “He told my wife, Trish, that if I got cleaned up, he would go racing with me.”
John Puffe raced when Dustin was growing up. He knew he had to focus his son on something to overcome his demons. Dustin got sober and his father made good on his promise. In October 2021, they bought a pure stock operation and set their sights on weekly racing at Bemidji Speedway.
“I had no idea that my dad and my wife would be planning for me to be a driver,” Dustin says. “When they told me, it all clicked for me — I didn’t need drinking; I needed family. I have a dad, a wife and a daughter that I should be spending time with. I soon realized how much I enjoyed racing and the time together with my dad. We were together in the shop and at the track.”
At the end of the 2023 season, John bought pure stock of 2022 WISSOTA pure stock national champ Cory Jorgensen. They raced it at the WISSOTA 100, which opened their eyes.
“I knew we had something good at that race,” Dustin says. “We didn’t have a national championship desire, but that all changed midway through the 2024 season. We were suddenly in third. We started racing at tracks with the highest number of pure stocks.”
Dustin won the track championship at Bemidji, but the national title eluded him.
“When the year was over, it ended sour,” Dustin says. “I got protested at Ogilvie Raceway at the Fall Classic and my engine was torn down. When I picked up the pieces and headed back to our hotel, I told my dad, ‘We’re not doing this again.’ We were leading by a point on Labor Day. We lost the championship at the last race of the season. We’re just going to race at Bemidji Speedway and have fun every week.”
Over time, Dustin’s tune changed.
“I was at the WISSOTA 2024 banquet, I saw how much a championship means to racers,” Dustin says. “I started thinking how close I was to being a national champion. I told my dad, ‘I will be the national champion in 2025.’ My dad looked at me and didn’t say a word. We went home and planned on racing at least three nights a week in 2025. When the season came, my dad was there with me at every show. He never said a word but knew how much going for the championship meant to me.”
The Puffes competed at Grand Rapids Speedway on Thursdays, Greenbush Race Park on Saturdays, Bemidji Speedway on Sundays, and midweek shows at Hibbing Speedway. The weekly grind wasn’t easy, but at the end of the year, Dustin Puffe earned the 2025 pure stock national championship.
“I had to step back from the mic — I got choked up,” Dustin says. “I thought of what my dad, my wife, and my daughter Dezerai, and how much they mean to me. Racing taught me the importance of spending time with my dad, my family. It kept me from falling back into drinking. It helped save my life.”
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.
