IMCA RaceSaver national champion Lee Goos Jr. kept stressing that he just races to have some fun. The chance to win a national championship came as a surprise, both this year and last.
In 2023, Goos finished second in national points to champion Tyler Drueke.
“I had no idea we were so close in points to Tyler,” said Goos, of Hartford, South Dakota. “We were at the [IMCA Sprint Car RaceSaver] Nationals at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska on Labor Day when someone came up [and said], ‘Do you realize you are in second in national points?’ We’d figured that we could hit a couple of big races, do well and win. The next weekend was a rainout. The following weekend we traveled to North Dakota, figuring Drueke wouldn’t travel that far, and we could top him in the national points.”
Surprise.
“I looked over my shoulder, and there he was, actually helping us push our car,” Goos said. “That made me realize what the championship meant to a guy like Tyler, who spent his whole season devoted to winning that championship.”
Drueke won the race at River Cities Speedway in North Dakota, cementing his championship.
In 2024, a similar scenario played out for Goos in August. He figured he had no more than six points outside of the lead. The last four weeks of the season, he made a full-court press to win the title. Goos regularly races at Jackson Motorplex in Minnesota and I-90 Speedway in South Dakota. However, once he realized he had a shot at the title, he traveled. US 30 Speedway in Nebraska. Shelby County Speedway in Iowa. River Cities Speedway. Arlington Raceway in Minnesota. Beatrice Speedway in Nebraska. Park Jefferson Speedway in South Dakota.
The long hauls paid off.
Lee Goos Jr. won the IMCA national championship in addition to eight features and track titles at Jackson and I-90.
“At the start of the season, we had no intention of winning the championship — heck, we didn’t even know if we would have made more than 20 shows,” said Goos. “Seeing how hard drivers try for the championship, and hearing from them how much it means, we realized that it was a bigger deal than we knew. We were just out racing to have fun.”
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.
