BILLY HOSKINSON’ S parents brought him home from the hospital as a baby in a’ 70 Nova, and he’ s been infatuated with fast cars ever since. From filming – and competing in – central Ohio’ s most notorious street races to promoting his own races at the track and making a name for himself as a driver in the no-prep world, Hoskinson, 28, has turned a childhood fascination into something much more than he could’ ve imagined.

Hoskinson’ s earliest memories of racing include riding around Pacemakers Dragway Park in Mount Vernon, Ohio, with his mother, listening to hear his father’ s name announced over the PA system every time he won a round. Billy started driving a Jr. Dragster when he was nine, which prepared him to step into the same car he grew up watching his father race. He had some success in the local bracket racing scene with it, but Street Outlaws and street racing in general started pulling Hoskinson in a different direction.

Hoskinson launched a YouTube channel where he’ d post coverage from big street races in the Columbus area. Inspired by 1320Video’ s coverage of street racing further West, Hoskinson felt he could shine a light on his local scene.“ It was never really supposed to be about me,” Hoskinson says.“ Then I started running out of content because things slowed down in the winter, so I started filming myself working on my projects in the shop. It kind of took off from there.”

One of Hoskinson’ s projects was the’ 88 Chevy S10 he built with his dad, who bought it for Billy when he was 15. He drove it to high school before they put nitrous on it. Hoskinson and the S10 became notorious around town, and he got a call one cold November evening with a callout from Street Outlaws star“ Daddy Dave” Comstock, who was racing in Dayton. Hoskinson loaded his truck in the freezing rain and headed South to face Comstock.“ He beat me by a couple car lengths, but it was just really influential because I was just out of high school at the time.”

The video of that race was one of the first to appear on Hoskinson’ s YouTube channel, Street Racing Channel, which now boasts nearly 400,000 subscribers.

Between the channel and his success in street races, Hoskinson’ s notoriety began to stretch beyond the street racing community. He was firmly on local law enforcement’ s radar, and when the law finally caught up to him, the judge offered to reduce his charges if he would start promoting races at the track in an attempt to get racers off the street. Hoskinson took the deal and started putting on a series of races at three different tracks in the area.

Event promotion eventually became too time-consuming and Hoskinson switched his attention back to his own racing program, focusing on no-prep races and backside races – anywhere with little traction and big money. His proudest accomplishment in that style of racing came recently when Street Car Takeover held a race on pit lane at Nashville Superspeedway. With $ 30,000 on the line, Hoskinson defeated heavy hitter Ryan Mitchell in the final round, which went viral online.

“ I’ ve been trying to beat him for 10 years,” Hoskinson says.“ He’ s beat me probably six times now consecutively, and I’ ve been racing him since I was 20 years old. That was a huge accomplishment for me. And then I went through the finish line with all four wheels off the ground. It was crazy.”

Hoskinson is also raising a future racer of his own, as his two-year-old son, Wyatt, loves cars and runs around the house making engine noises while he plays with his Hot Wheel cars. Hoskinson is already looking forward to the day he brings home a Jr. Dragster for his little boy, but until then, he’ s going to keep chasing win lights himself while continuing to make an impact on his corner of the drag racing world.

“ I would really like to take the channel to the next level, and I’ d like to start hosting events again at some point,” says Hoskinson, who thanked his parents and younger brother Tommy, as well as his friends and supporters.“ I would like to do one or two events a year, just make them really big and try to give back to the community that helped me get where I’ m at.” – NATE VAN WAGNEN DI

118 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 197